RESUMO
Vascular plants evolved in the Middle to Late Silurian period, about 420 million years ago. The fossil record indicates that these primitive plants had branched stems with sporangia but no leaves. Leaf-like lateral outgrowths subsequently evolved on at least two independent occasions. In extant plants, these events are represented by microphyllous leaves in lycophytes (clubmosses, spikemosses and quillworts) and megaphyllous leaves in euphyllophytes (ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms). Our current understanding of how leaves develop is restricted to processes that operate during megaphyll formation. Because microphylls and megaphylls evolved independently, different mechanisms might be required for leaf formation. Here we show that this is not so. Gene expression data from a microphyllous lycophyte, phylogenetic analyses, and a cross-species complementation experiment all show that a common developmental mechanism can underpin both microphyll and megaphyll formation. We propose that this mechanism might have operated originally in the context of primitive plant apices to facilitate bifurcation. Recruitment of this pathway to form leaves occurred independently and in parallel in different plant lineages.
Assuntos
Evolução Biológica , Modelos Biológicos , Folhas de Planta/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Antirrhinum/genética , Arabidopsis/genética , Proteínas de Arabidopsis/genética , Fósseis , Dosagem de Genes , Regulação da Expressão Gênica de Plantas/genética , Genes de Plantas/genética , Teste de Complementação Genética , Meristema/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Dados de Sequência Molecular , Mutação/genética , Filogenia , Folhas de Planta/genética , Folhas de Planta/fisiologia , Proteínas de Plantas/genética , Proteínas de Plantas/metabolismo , Raízes de Plantas/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Ligação Proteica , RNA de Plantas/análise , RNA de Plantas/genética , Fatores de Transcrição/genética , Zea mays/genéticaRESUMO
To understand how genes control floral asymmetry, we have isolated and analyzed the role of the RADIALIS (RAD) gene in Antirrhinum. We show that the RAD gene encodes a small MYB-like protein that is specifically expressed in the dorsal region of developing flowers. RAD has a single MYB-like domain that is closely related to one of the two MYB-like domains of DIV, a protein that has an antagonistic effect to RAD on floral development. Interactions between RAD and other genes indicate that floral asymmetry depends on the interplay between two pairs of transcription factors. First, a pair of TCP proteins is expressed in dorsal regions of the floral meristem, leading to the activation of RAD in the dorsal domain. The RAD MYB-like protein then antagonizes the related DIV MYB-like protein, preventing DIV activity in dorsal regions. In addition to its role in dorsal regions, RAD acts nonautonomously on lateral regions either directly, through RAD protein movement, or indirectly, through a signaling molecule.