Seminar: The architecture of flowers - the role of a sepal boundary gene in Arabidopsis

Speaker: Emeritus Professor David Smyth School of Biological Sciences Monash University, Clayton Campus Melbourne, Vic. 3800, Australia
Email: david.smyth@monash.edu
Tel: 61 (0)3 9905 3861; 61 (0)448 899 248
Webpage: http://www.biolsci.monash.edu.au/staff/smyth.html

Lecture: The architecture of flowers - the role of a sepal boundary gene in Arabidopsis

Date: May 30, 2012, Wednesday, 09:30AM

Place: 上海交通大学生命学院3-105会议室

Research area:
• We are interested in how genes regulate the morphogenesis of flowers. We use a small mustard species Arabidopsis thaliana as a model to uncover regulatory genes.
• One set of genes is involved in specifying internal parts of carpels, the female reproductive component of flowers. The SPATULA gene promotes development of the tract through which fertilizing pollen tubes grow. It encodes a bHLH transcription factor, and its role is shared by two other family members, ALCATRA and INDEHISCENT. Study of their joint action has revealed that SPATULA also acts with each of these genes later during seed pod development. Together they help establish the dehiscence zone that allows the ripe seeds to escape.
• Our current focus is another gene, PETAL LOSS, involved in regulating the development of petals and sepals, the perianth organs of the flower. PETAL LOSS functions to repress growth between newly arising sepals, allowing petal initiation signals to act nearby. The gene encodes a trihelix transcription factor, one of 30 in Arabidopsis. We are now working to understand the structure and function of the PETAL LOSS protein, its regulation, and to uncover the signals involved in petal initiation.