Functional roles of histone modification, chromatin remodeling and microRNAs in Arabidopsis flower development

Flowers are the reproductive units of angiosperms and originate from small number of stem cells maintained at the growing tips of shoots. Flower development is a multistep process starting from an environmental response, followed by the meristem identity change, termination of the stem cell activity, organ polarity control, organ identity determination, and organogenesis. It is regulated through many hard-wired genetic pathways, composed of transcription factors, signaling molecules, catalytic enzymes, and structural proteins. Epigenetic regulators play essential roles for the initiation and maintenance of the genetic pathways by controlling gene expression through chromosomes. Histone modification, ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling, and microRNAs are involved in the regulation of spatiotemporal-specific expression of huge numbers of genes that lead to patterning, specification, and morphogenesis of flowers. In contrast, DNA methylation mainly works for genome stability and integrity, silencing transposons, and repeats. This review will describe the recent progress on functional roles of epigenetic regulators and their crosstalks in Arabidopsis flower development.