Potent Induction of Arabidopsis thaliana Flowering by Elevated Growth Temperature

By Sureshkumar Balasubramanian, S. Sureshkumar, Janne Lempe, Detlef Weigel. PLoS Genetics, 2006

615 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The transition to flowering is an important event in the plant life cycle and is modulated by several environmental factors including photoperiod, light quality, vernalization, and growth temperature, as well as biotic and abiotic stresses. In contrast to light and vernalization, little is known about the pathways that mediate the responses to other environmental variables. A mild increase in growth temperature, from 23 °C to 27 °C, is equally efficient in inducing flowering of Arabidopsis plants grown in 8-h short days as is transfer to 16-h long days. There is extensive natural variation in this response, and we identify strains with contrasting thermal reaction norms. Exploiting this natural variation, we show that FLOWERING LOCUS C potently suppresses thermal induction, and that the closely related floral repressor FLOWERING LOCUS M is a major-effect quantitative trait locus modulating thermosensitivity. Thermal induction does not require the photoperiod effector CONSTANS, acts upstream of the floral integrator FLOWERING LOCUS T, and depends on the hormone gibberellin. Analysis of mutants defective in salicylic acid biosynthesis suggests that thermal induction is independent of previously identified stress-signaling pathways. Microarray analyses confirm that the genomic responses to floral induction by photoperiod and temperature differ. Furthermore, we report that gene products that participate in RNA splicing are specifically affected by thermal induction. Above a critical threshold, even small changes in temperature can act as cues for the induction of flowering. This response has a genetic basis that is distinct from the known genetic pathways of floral transition, and appears to correlate with changes in RNA processing.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f998b16e7ebb1564c7a85634279b25edb71dcc4f

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Citations in the corpus

H2A.Z-containing nucleosomes mediate the thermosensory response in Arabidopsis. (2010, positive): “, 2003) and is dependent on increasing expression of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Cerdan and Chory, 2003; Halliday et al., 2003; Lee et al., 2007).”
Alternative Splicing at the Intersection of Biological Timing, Development, and Stress Responses[OPEN] (2013, background): “Similarly, when transcriptome changes were monitored in Arabidopsis plants transferred from 16 to 25°C, leading to accelerated flowering via the ambient temperature pathway, RNA processing–related factors were enriched (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Balasubramanian and Weigel, 2006).”
Common mechanisms regulate flowering and dormancy (2009, background): “The fact that MAF1 is likely responsible for reducing flowering time under elevated temperatures underscores this possibility [67].”
Comprehending crystalline β-carotene accumulation by comparing engineered cell models and the natural carotenoid-rich system of citrus (2011, positive): “In Angiosperms, one such signal is photoperiod, more specifically the length of the dark period (Ellis et al., 1997; Blazquez et al., 2003; Balasubramanian et al., 2006).”
Temperature stress and plant sexual reproduction: uncovering the weakest links. (2010, neutral): “Mechanisms of heat-stimulated bolting and flowering in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) are being uncovered (Balasubramanian et al., 2006; Tonsor et al., 2008).”
Role of SVP in the control of flowering time by ambient temperature in Arabidopsis. (2007, background): “Consistent with this premise, temperature responses were restored in fve flc and fca flc double mutants to a level similar to that shown by flc single mutants (Blázquez et al. 2003; Balasubramanian et al. 2006).”
Regulation of flowering time: all roads lead to Rome (2011, positive): “flower by temperature and photoperiod showed expression of HEAT SHOCK PROTEIN 70 (HSP70) to be highly correlated with gradual increases in temperature [112, 119].”