TY - JOUR T1 - Control of stem-cell niche establishment in Arabidopsis flowers by REVOLUTA and the LEAFY-RAX1 module JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/488114 SP - 488114 AU - Denay Grégoire AU - Tichtinsky Gabrielle AU - Le Masson Marie AU - Chahtane Hicham AU - Huguet Sylvie AU - Lopez-Vidriero Irene AU - Wenzl Christian AU - Franco-Zorrilla José Manuel AU - Simon Rüdiger AU - Jan U. Lohmann AU - Parcy François Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/06/488114.abstract N2 - Plants retain the ability to produce organs throughout their life by maintaining active stem cell niches called meristems. The shoot apical meristem (SAM) is responsible for the growth of aerial plant structures. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the SAM initially produces leaves during the vegetative phase and later flowers during reproductive development. In the early stages of floral initiation, a group of cells first emerges from the SAM to form a stereotypically organized meristematic structure on its flank. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the acquisition of this specific meristematic organization remain elusive. We show here that the transcription factors LEAFY (LFY) and REVOLUTA (REV) control two partially redundant pathways controlling meristematic organization in early flower primordia. We found that LFY acts through the transcription factor REGULATOR OF AXILLARY MERISTEM1 (RAX1) and we provide mechanistic insights in how RAX1 allows meristem identity establishment in young flowers. Our work provides a molecular link between the processes of meristem formation and floral identity acquisition in the nascent flower. ER -