Natural variation in vernalization response of Arabidopsis accessions

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The Dean laboratory has begun to dissect the molecular controls of flowering using the excellent genetic system Arabidopsis thaliana. We have focused on why and how prolonged cold influences flowering, a process called vernalization. In nature, plants experience prolonged cold during winter and many plants have evolved to ensure they cannot flower until they have experienced this prolonged cold as an adaptation to ensure flowering in spring when conditions are favourable for maximal flower production and seed set. Now we know the key players in this process we want to investigate how their function has changed in order to allow changes in flowering and vernalization that have enabled plants to adapt to growth in very different winter conditions. We are working with Arabidopsis accessions collected from a range of latitudes all the way up to the edge of the Arctic Circle. These plants need much longer periods of cold in order to accelerate flowering than ones collected from the UK. We have made crosses between these different plants and have analysed the flowering and vernalization response of their progeny. This has indicated that the same 4-5 genes seem to have changed to allow this adaptation to different winters. We now want to identify which genes these are, understand what changes have occurred and how those affect the flowering behaviour. In collaboration with experts we also want to determine if those changes have spread in the worldwide Arabidopsis population and understand how much advantage those changes confer to the plants in the different environmental conditions.

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