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Repatterning of the inflorescence meristem in Gerbera hybrida after wounding.

ABSTRACT: The Asteraceae plant family is characterized by inflorescences, called flower heads or capitula that may combine hundreds of individual florets into a single flower-like structure. The florets are arranged in a regular phyllotactic pattern with Fibonacci numbers of left- and right-winding spirals. Such a pattern may be disrupted due to physical constraints or by wounding occurring during the early meristem development. Recovery from wounding re-establishes patterning although the mechanisms have remained elusive. In this study, we applied Gerbera hybrida as a model system and established methods to conduct wounding experiments either with syringe needles or using laser ablation combined with live imaging of head meristems. By revisiting the historical experiments in sunflower, we conducted wounding to transgenic auxin reporter lines of gerbera and followed the recovery of cellular growth and meristem patterning. We show that wounding disrupted the expression of the gerbera CLAVATA3 (GhCLV3) gene that marks the undifferentiated meristematic region and led to de novo re-initiation of patterning at the wound margin. During the recovery growth, three to five layers of elongated cells showing periclinal cell division planes and lacking auxin signal were formed at the wound rim. DR5 auxin signal was shown to localize and form regularly spaced maxima in a distance from the wound rim. Consequently, spiral pattern of contact parastichies was re-established by stacking of new auxin maxima on top of the previous ones. The developed methods facilitate future studies on understanding the molecular mechanisms of de novo patterning of meristems.

SUBMITTER: Zhang T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8106577 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundThe flowering process in plants proceeds through the induction of an inflorescence meristem triggered by several pathways. Many of the genes associated with both the flowering process and floral architecture encode transcription factors of the MADS domain family. Gerbera, a member of the sunflower family, Asteraceae, bears compressed inflorescence heads (capitula) with three different flower types characterized by differences in both sexuality and floral symmetry. To understand how such a complex inflorescence structure is achieved at the molecular level, we have characterized the array of Gerbera MADS box genes. The high number of SQUAMOSA-like genes in Gerbera compared to other model species raised the question as to whether they may relate to Gerbera's complex inflorescence structure and whether or not a homeotic A function is present.ResultsIn this paper we describe six Gerbera genes related to the SQUAMOSA/APETALA1/FRUITFULL genes of snapdragon and Arabidopsis. Based on phylogenetic analysis of the entire gene lineage, our data indicates that GSQUA1 and GSQUA3 are members of the SQUA/AP1 clade, while GSQUA2, GSQUA4, GSQUA5 and GSQUA6 are co-orthologs of the Arabidopsis FUL gene. GSQUA1/GSQUA3 and GSQUA4/GSQUA5/GSQUA6, respectively, represent several gene duplication events unknown in the model systems that may be specific to either Gerbera or Asteraceae. GSQUA genes showed specific expression profiles. GSQUA1, GSQUA2, and GSQUA5 were inflorescence abundant, while GSQUA3, GSQUA4, and GSQUA6 expression was also detected in vegetative organs. Overexpression of GSQUA2 in Gerbera led to accelerated flowering, dwarfism and vegetative abnormalities, all new and specific phenomena observed in transgenic Gerbera plants with modified MADS box gene expression.ConclusionsBased on expression patterns, none of the Gerbera SQUA-like genes are likely to control flower organ identity in the sense of the floral A function. However, our data shows that the FUL-like gene GSQUA2 plays a vital role in meristem transition. The roles of other GSQUA-genes in Gerbera floral development are intriguing, but require still further study.

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Repatterning of the inflorescence meristem in Gerbera hybrida after wounding.

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