The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana

BACKGROUND: Throughout their lives plants produce new organs from groups of pluripotent cells called meristems, located at the tips of the shoot and the root. The size of the shoot meristem is tightly controlled by a feedback loop, which involves the homeodomain transcription factor WUSCHEL (WUS) an...

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Autores principales: Wahl, Vanessa, Brand, Luise H, Guo, Ya-Long, Schmid, Markus
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3023791/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21176196
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-10-285
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author Wahl, Vanessa
Brand, Luise H
Guo, Ya-Long
Schmid, Markus
author_facet Wahl, Vanessa
Brand, Luise H
Guo, Ya-Long
Schmid, Markus
author_sort Wahl, Vanessa
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Throughout their lives plants produce new organs from groups of pluripotent cells called meristems, located at the tips of the shoot and the root. The size of the shoot meristem is tightly controlled by a feedback loop, which involves the homeodomain transcription factor WUSCHEL (WUS) and the CLAVATA (CLV) proteins. This regulatory circuit is further fine-tuned by morphogenic signals such as hormones and sugars. RESULTS: Here we show that a family of four plant-specific proteins, encoded by the FANTASTIC FOUR (FAF) genes, has the potential to regulate shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana. FAF2 and FAF4 are expressed in the centre of the shoot meristem, overlapping with the site of WUS expression. Consistent with a regulatory interaction between the FAF gene family and WUS, our experiments indicate that the FAFs can repress WUS, which ultimately leads to an arrest of meristem activity in FAF overexpressing lines. The finding that meristematic expression of FAF2 and FAF4 is under negative control by CLV3 further supports the hypothesis that the FAFs are modulators of the genetic circuit that regulates the meristem. CONCLUSION: This study reports the initial characterization of the Arabidopsis thaliana FAF gene family. Our data indicate that the FAF genes form a plant specific gene family, the members of which have the potential to regulate the size of the shoot meristem by modulating the CLV3-WUS feedback loop.
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spelling pubmed-30237912011-01-20 The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana Wahl, Vanessa Brand, Luise H Guo, Ya-Long Schmid, Markus BMC Plant Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Throughout their lives plants produce new organs from groups of pluripotent cells called meristems, located at the tips of the shoot and the root. The size of the shoot meristem is tightly controlled by a feedback loop, which involves the homeodomain transcription factor WUSCHEL (WUS) and the CLAVATA (CLV) proteins. This regulatory circuit is further fine-tuned by morphogenic signals such as hormones and sugars. RESULTS: Here we show that a family of four plant-specific proteins, encoded by the FANTASTIC FOUR (FAF) genes, has the potential to regulate shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana. FAF2 and FAF4 are expressed in the centre of the shoot meristem, overlapping with the site of WUS expression. Consistent with a regulatory interaction between the FAF gene family and WUS, our experiments indicate that the FAFs can repress WUS, which ultimately leads to an arrest of meristem activity in FAF overexpressing lines. The finding that meristematic expression of FAF2 and FAF4 is under negative control by CLV3 further supports the hypothesis that the FAFs are modulators of the genetic circuit that regulates the meristem. CONCLUSION: This study reports the initial characterization of the Arabidopsis thaliana FAF gene family. Our data indicate that the FAF genes form a plant specific gene family, the members of which have the potential to regulate the size of the shoot meristem by modulating the CLV3-WUS feedback loop. BioMed Central 2010-12-22 /pmc/articles/PMC3023791/ /pubmed/21176196 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-10-285 Text en Copyright ©2010 Wahl et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (<url>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0</url>), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wahl, Vanessa
Brand, Luise H
Guo, Ya-Long
Schmid, Markus
The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana
title The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana
title_full The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana
title_fullStr The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana
title_full_unstemmed The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana
title_short The FANTASTIC FOUR proteins influence shoot meristem size in Arabidopsis thaliana
title_sort fantastic four proteins influence shoot meristem size in arabidopsis thaliana
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3023791/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21176196
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2229-10-285
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