ViPS Invited Seminar February 2020

George Coupland, Max Planck Institute, Cologne, Germany

Date: 12th February 2020

Time: 13:15

Title: Mechanisms conferring seasonal flowering responses in annual and perennial plants

Location: Seminar room B4, Forest Sciences Building, Latokartanonkaari 7-9

Host: Timo Hytönen

Abstract: The plant life-cycle varies tremendously among species. We study how flowering is controlled by seasonal cues in the context of annual and perennial life cycles. Annuals reproduce once in their life time producing high seed yields, whereas perennials live for many years but limit the extent of reproduction each year. We focus on the Brassicaceae family, in which annual species have diverged from perennials many times. We use annual Arabidopsis thaliana to decipher regulatory networks controlling seasonal responses and exploit perennial Arabis alpina to determine how these networks change during evolution to confer ecologically significant differences in flowering behaviour. Recently, we showed how a network of microRNAs and transcription factors act in the shoot apex to control the age at which the plant becomes sensitive to winter cold. The activity of this network differs between annuals and perennials, effectively delaying flowering of perennials. The talk will describe our recent progress in understanding regulatory processes that control the transition to flowering and how these diverge during evolution.

Read more about George's research

Related publications:

Hyun, Y., Vincent, C., Tilmes, V., Bergonzi, S., Kiefer, C. †, Richter, R., Martinez-Gallegos, R., Severing, E. and Coupland, G.‡ (2019) A regulatory circuit conferring varied flowering response to cold in annual and perennial plants. Science 363 (6425), 409-412.

Richter, R., Kinoshita, A., Vincent, C., Martinez-Gallegos, R., Gao, H., van Driel, AD., Hyun, Y., Mateos, JL., Coupland, G. (2019). Floral regulators FLC and SOC1 directly regulate expression of the B3-type transcription factor TARGET OF FLC AND SVP 1 at the Arabidopsis shoot apex via antagonistic chromatin modifications. PLoS genetics 15 (4), e1008065, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008065

Hayama, R., Sarid-Krebs, L., Richter, R., Fernández, V., Jang, S. and Coupland, G. (2017).

PSEUDO RESPONSE REGULATORs stabilize CONSTANS protein to promote flowering in response to day length.

EMBO Journal 36(7), 904-918. doi:10.15252/embj.201693907

Kiefer, C., Severing, E., Karl, R., Bergonzi, S., Koch, M., Tresch, A. and Coupland, G. (2017)

Divergence of annual and perennial species in the Brassicaceae and the contribution of cis-acting variation at FLC orthologues.

Molecular Ecology 26, 3437-3457. doi:10.1111/mec.14084

Hyun, Y., Richter, R., Vincent, C., Martinez-Gallegos, R., Porri, A. and Coupland, G. (2016)

Multi-layered Regulation of SPL15 and Cooperation with SOC1 Integrate Endogenous Flowering Pathways at the Arabidopsis Shoot Meristem.

Developmental Cell 37, 254-266 doi 10.1016/j.devcel.2016.04.001