Regulatory modules controlling maize inflorescence architecture
- Andrea L. Eveland1,
- Alexander Goldshmidt1,7,
- Michael Pautler1,
- Kengo Morohashi2,
- Christophe Liseron-Monfils1,
- Michael W. Lewis3,
- Sunita Kumari1,
- Susumu Hiraga1,4,
- Fang Yang1,
- Erica Unger-Wallace5,
- Andrew Olson1,
- Sarah Hake3,
- Erik Vollbrecht5,
- Erich Grotewold2,
- Doreen Ware1,6,8 and
- David Jackson1,8
- 1Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA;
- 2Department of Molecular Genetics, Center for Applied Plant Sciences (CAPS), The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA;
- 3Plant Gene Expression Center, US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, Plant and Microbial Biology Department, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA;
- 4NARO Institute of Crop Science, National Food and Agriculture Research Organization, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8518, Japan;
- 5Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA;
- 6US Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service, NAA, Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
Abstract
Genetic control of branching is a primary determinant of yield, regulating seed number and harvesting ability, yet little is known about the molecular networks that shape grain-bearing inflorescences of cereal crops. Here, we used the maize (Zea mays) inflorescence to investigate gene networks that modulate determinacy, specifically the decision to allow branch growth. We characterized developmental transitions by associating spatiotemporal expression profiles with morphological changes resulting from genetic perturbations that disrupt steps in a pathway controlling branching. Developmental dynamics of genes targeted in vivo by the transcription factor RAMOSA1, a key regulator of determinacy, revealed potential mechanisms for repressing branches in distinct stem cell populations, including interactions with KNOTTED1, a master regulator of stem cell maintenance. Our results uncover discrete developmental modules that function in determining grass-specific morphology and provide a basis for targeted crop improvement and translation to other cereal crops with comparable inflorescence architectures.
Footnotes
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↵8 Corresponding authors
E-mail jacksond{at}cshl.edu
E-mail ware{at}cshl.edu
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[Supplemental material is available for this article.]
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Article published online before print. Article, supplemental material, and publication date are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.166397.113.
- Received September 19, 2013.
- Accepted November 27, 2013.
This article is distributed exclusively by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for the first six months after the full-issue publication date (see http://genome.cshlp.org/site/misc/terms.xhtml). After six months, it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported), as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.
