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Epigenetic Control of Flowering Time

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Epigenetic Memory and Control in Plants

Part of the book series: Signaling and Communication in Plants ((SIGCOMM,volume 18))

Abstract

The decision to flower and commit to the reproductive phase requires that plants remember seasonal cues and keep a clock on their developmental age. Molecular memories have been explained by the bistable expression of genes. Bistable genes are switched from an expressed to a repressed state or vice versa in response to a primary stimulus, which is not required to maintain the switched state. Alterations in chromatin structure, orchestrated by covalent modifications of histones, are part of the molecular mechanism leading to bistable gene expression. For histone modifications that play a crucial role in molecular memories, the term “epigenetic chromatin marks” applies since bistable states can be maintained throughout mitosis. In the following chapter, we will first outline the regulation of the floral repressor FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) of Arabidopsis thaliana, for which the impact of chromatin modification on the molecular memory has been well studied. Differences in the regulation of the FLC and its ortholog PERPETUAL FLOWERING 1 from Arabis alpina, a perennial relative of A. thaliana, are discussed. Last, the impact of chromatin structure on the regulation of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) is presented to illustrate that chromatin regulation can be important in regulatory networks that do not require bistability.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to apologize to those authors whose work we have not been able to consider in this chapter due to limitations of space and scope.

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  1. Department of Plant Developmental Biology, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Carl von Linné Weg 10, 50829, Köln, Germany

    Theo Zografou & Franziska Turck

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  1. Theo Zografou
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  2. Franziska Turck
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Correspondence to Franziska Turck .

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  1. Agriculture and Biotech. of Drylands, Jacob Blaustein Inst. for Desert Res., French Associates Institute for, Sede Boqer Campus, 84990, Israel

    Gideon Grafi

  2. Britannia Building, Department of Molecular Biology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 69978, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Nir Ohad

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Zografou, T., Turck, F. (2013). Epigenetic Control of Flowering Time. In: Grafi, G., Ohad, N. (eds) Epigenetic Memory and Control in Plants. Signaling and Communication in Plants, vol 18. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35227-0_5

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