Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Efficient and Rapid Isolation of Early-stage Embryos from Arabidopsis thaliana Seeds
Published on: June 7, 2013
Polycomb repression of flowering during early plant development
T Kinoshita1, J J Harada, R B Goldberg
1Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Abstract:
All plants flower late in their life cycle. For example, in Arabidopsis, the shoot undergoes a transition and produces reproductive flowers after the adult phase of vegetative growth. Much is known about genetic and environmental processes that control flowering time in mature plants. However, little is understood about the mechanisms that prevent plants from flowering much earlier during embryo and seedling development. Arabidopsis embryonic flower (emf1 and emf2) mutants flower soon after germination, suggesting that a floral repression mechanism is established in wild-type plants that prevents flowering until maturity. Here, we show that polycomb group proteins play a central role in repressing flowering early in the plant life cycle. We found that mutations in the Fertilization Independent Endosperm (FIE) polycomb gene caused the seedling shoot to produce flower-like structures and organs. Flower-like structures were also generated from the hypocotyl and root, organs not associated with reproduction. Expression of floral induction and homeotic genes was derepressed in mutant embryos and seedlings. These results suggest that FIE-mediated polycomb complexes are an essential component of a floral repression mechanism established early during plant development.
More Related Videos
12:36Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Assay for the Identification of Arabidopsis Protein-DNA Interactions In Vivo
Published on: January 14, 2016
11:33Investigating Interactions Between Histone Modifying Enzymes and Transcription Factors in vivo by Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer
Published on: October 14, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Morphogenesis
Regulation of Expression Occurs at Multiple Steps
Transcription results in the generation of precursor (pre-mRNA) that consists of both exons and introns, which needs further processing before being translated to a...
Eukaryotic Transcription Inhibitors
Eukaryotic transcription inhibitors usually contain two distinct domains, a DNA...
Combinatorial Gene Control
The expression of more than 30,000 genes is controlled by approximately 2000-3000 transcription factors. This is possible because a single transcription factor can recognize more than one regulatory sequence. The specificity in gene...
Regulation of Expression Occurs at Multiple Steps
Transcription results in the generation of precursor (pre-mRNA) that consists of both exons and introns, which needs further processing before being translated to a...
Gene Regulation During Sporulation