Altitudinal and Climatic Adaptation Is Mediated by Flowering Traits and FRI, FLC, and PHYC Genes in Arabidopsis

Altitudinal and climatic adaptation is mediated by flowering traits and FRI, FLC, and PHYC genes in Arabidopsis.

Extensive natural variation has been described for the timing of flowering initiation in many annual plants, including the model wild species Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), which is presumed to be involved in adaptation to different climates. However, the environmental factors that might shape this genetic variation, as well as the molecular bases of climatic adaptation by modifications of...

Nonadditive regulation of FRI and FLC loci mediates flowering-time variation in Arabidopsis allopolyploids.

Allopolyploidy is formed by combining two or more divergent genomes and occurs throughout the evolutionary history of many plants and some animals. Transcriptome analysis indicates that many genes in various biological pathways, including flowering time, are expressed nonadditively (different from the midparent value). However, the mechanisms for nonadditive gene regulation in a biological path...

Epistatic interaction between Arabidopsis FRI and FLC flowering time genes generates a latitudinal cline in a life history trait.

Epistatic gene interactions are believed to be a major factor in the genetic architecture of evolutionary diversification. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the FRI and FLC genes mechanistically interact to control flowering time, and here we show that this epistatic interaction also contributes to a latitudinal cline in this life history trait within the species. Two major FLC haplogroups (FLC(A) and F...

Epistatic interaction between the Arabidopsis FRI and FLC flowering time genes generates a latitudinal cline in a life history trait

FLC-mediated flowering repression is positively regulated by sumoylation

Flowering locus C (FLC), a floral repressor, is a critical factor for the transition from the vegetative to the reproductive phase. Here, the mechanisms regulating the activity and stability of the FLC protein were investigated. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation and in vitro pull-down analyses showed that FLC interacts with the E3 small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) ligase AtSIZ1, sugge...