JOINTLESS Maintains Inflorescence Meristem Identity in Tomato.

JOINTLESS (J) was isolated in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) from mutants lacking a flower pedicel abscission zone (AZ), and encodes a MADS-box protein of the SVP/AGL24 sub-family. The loss of J function also causes the return to leaf initiation in the inflorescences, indicating a pivotal role in inflorescence meristem identity. Here, we compared j mutants in different accessions that exhibit either an indeterminate shoot growth, producing regular sympodial segments, or a determinate shoot growth, due to the reduction of sympodial segments and causal mutation of the SELF PRUNING (SP) gene. We observed that the inflorescence phenotype of j mutants is stronger in indeterminate (SP) accessions such as Ailsa Craig (AC), than in determinate (sp) ones, such as Heinz (Hz). Moreover, RNA-seq analysis revealed that the return to vegetative fate in j mutants is accompanied by expression of SP, which supports conversion of the inflorescence meristem to sympodial shoot meristem in j inflorescences. Other markers of vegetative meristems such as APETALA2c, and branching genes such as BRANCHED 1 (BRC1a/b) were differentially expressed in the inflorescences of j(AC) mutants. We also found in the indeterminate AC accession that J represses homeotic genes of B- and C-classes, and that its overexpression causes an oversized leafy calyx phenotype and has a dominant negative effect on AZ formation. A model is therefore proposed where J, by repressing shoot fate and influencing reproductive organ formation, acts as a key determinant of inflorescence meristems.

ZRT-IRT-Like PROTEIN 6 expression perturbs local ion homeostasis in flowers and leads to anther indehiscence and male sterility.

Metallic micronutrients are essential throughout the plant life cycle. Maintaining metal homeostasis in plant tissues requires a highly complex and finely tuned network controlling metal uptake, transport, distribution and storage. Zinc and cadmium hyperaccumulation, such as observed in the model plant Arabidopsis halleri, represents an extreme evolution of this network. Here, non-ectopic overexpression of the A. halleri ZIP6 (AhZIP6) gene, encoding a zinc and cadmium influx transporter, in Arabidopsis thaliana enabled examining the importance of zinc for flower development and reproduction. We show that AhZIP6 expression in flowers leads to male sterility resulting from anther indehiscence in a dose-dependent manner. The sterility phenotype is associated to delayed tapetum degradation and endothecium collapse, as well as increased magnesium and potassium accumulation and higher expression of the MHX gene in stamens. It is rescued by the co-expression of the zinc efflux transporter AhHMA4, linking the sterility phenotype to zinc homeostasis. Altogether, our results confirm that AhZIP6 is able to transport zinc in planta and highlight the importance of fine-tuning zinc homeostasis in reproductive organs. The study illustrates how the characterization of metal hyperaccumulation mechanisms can reveal key nodes and processes in the metal homeostasis network.

A root chicory MADS box sequence and the Arabidopsis flowering repressor FLC share common features that suggest conserved function in vernalization and de-vernalization responses.

Root chicory (Cichorium intybus var. sativum) is a biennial crop, but is harvested to obtain root inulin at the end of the first growing season before flowering. However, cold temperatures may vernalize seeds or plantlets, leading to incidental early flowering, and hence understanding the molecular basis of vernalization is important. A MADS box sequence was isolated by RT-PCR and named FLC-LIKE1 (CiFL1) because of its phylogenetic positioning within the same clade as the floral repressor Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS C (AtFLC). Moreover, over-expression of CiFL1 in Arabidopsis caused late flowering and prevented up-regulation of the AtFLC target FLOWERING LOCUS T by photoperiod, suggesting functional conservation between root chicory and Arabidopsis. Like AtFLC in Arabidopsis, CiFL1 was repressed during vernalization of seeds or plantlets of chicory, but repression of CiFL1 was unstable when the post-vernalization temperature was favorable to flowering and when it de-vernalized the plants. This instability of CiFL1 repression may be linked to the bienniality of root chicory compared with the annual lifecycle of Arabidopsis. However, re-activation of AtFLC was also observed in Arabidopsis when a high temperature treatment was used straight after seed vernalization, eliminating the promotive effect of cold on flowering. Cold-induced down-regulation of a MADS box floral repressor and its re-activation by high temperature thus appear to be conserved features of the vernalization and de-vernalization responses in distant species.

Zebrafish sox9b is crucial for hepatopancreatic duct development and pancreatic endocrine cell regeneration.

Recent zebrafish studies have shown that the late appearing pancreatic endocrine cells are derived from pancreatic ducts but the regulatory factors involved are still largely unknown. Here, we show that the zebrafish sox9b gene is expressed in pancreatic ducts where it labels the pancreatic Notch-responsive cells previously shown to be progenitors. Inactivation of sox9b disturbs duct formation and impairs regeneration of beta cells from these ducts in larvae. sox9b expression in the midtrunk endoderm appears at the junction of the hepatic and ventral pancreatic buds and, by the end of embryogenesis, labels the hepatopancreatic ductal system as well as the intrapancreatic and intrahepatic ducts. Ductal morphogenesis and differentiation are specifically disrupted in sox9b mutants, with the dysmorphic hepatopancreatic ducts containing misdifferentiated hepatocyte-like and pancreatic-like cells. We also show that maintenance of sox9b expression in the extrapancreatic and intrapancreatic ducts requires FGF and Notch activity, respectively, both pathways known to prevent excessive endocrine differentiation in these ducts. Furthermore, beta cell recovery after specific ablation is severely compromised in sox9b mutant larvae. Our data position sox9b as a key player in the generation of secondary endocrine cells deriving from pancreatic ducts in zebrafish.

The Pax6b homeodomain is dispensable for pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation in zebrafish.

Pax6 is a well conserved transcription factor that contains two DNA-binding domains, a paired domain and a homeodomain, and plays a key role in the development of eye, brain, and pancreas in vertebrates. The recent identification of the zebrafish sunrise mutant, harboring a mutation in the pax6b homeobox and presenting eye abnormalities but no obvious pancreatic defects, raised a question about the role of pax6b in zebrafish pancreas. We show here that pax6b does play an essential role in pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation, as revealed by the phenotype of a novel zebrafish pax6b null mutant and of embryos injected with pax6b morpholinos. Pax6b-depleted embryos have almost no beta cells, a strongly reduced number of delta cells, and a significant increase of epsilon cells. Through the use of various morpholinos targeting intron-exon junctions, pax6b RNA splicing was perturbed at several sites, leading either to retention of intronic sequences or to deletion of exonic sequences in the pax6b transcript. By this strategy, we show that deletion of the Pax6b homeodomain in zebrafish embryos does not disturb pancreas development, whereas lens formation is strongly affected. These data thus provide the explanation for the lack of pancreatic defects in the sunrise pax6b mutants. In addition, partial reduction of Pax6b function in zebrafish embryos performed by injection of small amounts of pax6b morpholinos caused a clear rise in alpha cell number and in glucagon expression, emphasizing the importance of the fine tuning of the Pax6b level to its biological activity.

Integrating roots into a whole plant network of flowering time genes in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Molecular data concerning the involvement of roots in the genetic pathways regulating floral transition are lacking. In this study, we performed global analyses of the root transcriptome in Arabidopsis in order to identify flowering time genes that are expressed in the roots and genes that are differentially expressed in the roots during the induction of flowering. Data mining of public microarray experiments uncovered that about 200 genes whose mutations are reported to alter flowering time are expressed in the roots (i.e. were detected in more than 50% of the microarrays). However, only a few flowering integrator genes passed the analysis cutoff. Comparison of root transcriptome in short days and during synchronized induction of flowering by a single 22-h long day revealed that 595 genes were differentially expressed. Enrichment analyses of differentially expressed genes in root tissues, gene ontology categories, and cis-regulatory elements converged towards sugar signaling. We concluded that roots are integrated in systemic signaling, whereby carbon supply coordinates growth at the whole plant level during the induction of flowering. This coordination could involve the root circadian clock and cytokinin biosynthesis as a feed forward loop towards the shoot.

Heat can erase epigenetic marks of vernalization in Arabidopsis.

Vernalization establishes a memory of winter that must be maintained for weeks or months in order to promote flowering the following spring. The stability of the vernalized state varies among plant species and depends on the duration of cold exposure. In Arabidopsis thaliana, winter leads to epigenetic silencing of the floral repressor gene FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) and the duration of cold is measured through the dynamics of chromatin modifications during and after cold. The growing conditions encountered post-vernalization are thus critical for the maintenance of the vernalized state. We reported that high temperature leads to devernalization and, consistently, to FLC reactivation in Arabidopsis seedlings. Here we show that the repressive epigenetic mark H3K27me3 decreases at the FLC locus when vernalized seedlings are grown at 30°C, unless they were first exposed to a stabilizing period at 20°C. Ambient temperature thus controls the epigenetic memory of winter.

Essential roles of zebrafish bmp2a, fgf10, and fgf24 in the specification of the ventral pancreas.

In vertebrates, pancreas and liver arise from bipotential progenitors located in the embryonic gut endoderm. Bone morphogenic protein (BMP) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling pathways have been shown to induce hepatic specification while repressing pancreatic fate. Here we show that BMP and FGF factors also play crucial function, at slightly later stages, in the specification of the ventral pancreas. By analyzing the pancreatic markers pdx1, ptf1a, and hlxb9la in different zebrafish models of BMP loss of function, we demonstrate that the BMP pathway is required between 20 and 24 h postfertilization to specify the ventral pancreatic bud. Knockdown experiments show that bmp2a, expressed in the lateral plate mesoderm at these stages, is essential for ventral pancreas specification. Bmp2a action is not restricted to the pancreatic domain and is also required for the proper expression of hepatic markers. By contrast, through the analysis of fgf10(-/-); fgf24(-/-) embryos, we reveal the specific role of these two FGF ligands in the induction of the ventral pancreas and in the repression of the hepatic fate. These mutants display ventral pancreas agenesis and ectopic masses of hepatocytes. Overall, these data highlight the dynamic role of BMP and FGF in the patterning of the hepatopancreatic region.

In situ localisation of cytokinins in the shoot apical meristem of Sinapis alba at floral transition.

In plants of Sinapis alba L. induced to flower by one long day (LD), previous work showed that the phloem sap feeding the shoot apex is enriched in cytokinins of the isopentenyladenine (iP)-type between 9 and 25 h after start of the LD [P. Lejeune et al. (1994) Physiol Plant 90:522-528]. We have checked the hypothesis that the cytokinin content of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) should increase in response to floral induction by one LD using histoimmunolocalisation techniques and rabbit antiserum against isopentenyladenosine or zeatin riboside. The free bases iP and zeatin are present only in apical tissues containing dividing cells. At 30 h after the start of an inductive LD, a markedly increased iP immune reaction is observed in SAM tissues while the level of zeatin is not modified. Our results are in line with the data obtained by analysis of phloem sap.