Nature Genetics 33, 168 - 171 (2003)
Published online: 27 January 2003; | doi:10.1038/ng1085
A thermosensory pathway controlling flowering time in Arabidopsis thalianaMiguel A. Blázquez1, 2, 5, Ji Hoon Ahn1, 3, 5
& Detlef Weigel1, 41
Plant Biology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. 2
Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas (CSIC-UPV), 46022 Valencia, Spain. 3
Graduate School of Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul 136-701, Korea. 4
Department of Molecular Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. 5
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence should be addressed to Detlef Weigel weigel@weigelworld.org Onset of flowering is controlled by environmental signals such as light and temperature. Molecular-genetic studies in Arabidopsis thaliana have focused on daily light duration, or photoperiod, and transient exposure to winter-like temperatures, or vernalization1. Yet ambient growth temperature, which is strongly affected by current changes in global climate2, has been largely ignored. Here, we show that genes of the autonomous pathway, previously thought only to act independently of the environment as regulators of the floral repressor FLC (ref. 1), are centrally involved in mediating the effects of ambient temperature. In contrast to wild-type plants and those mutant in other pathways, autonomous-pathway mutants flower at the same time regardless of ambient temperature. In contrast, the exaggerated temperature response of cryptochrome-2 mutants is caused by temperature-dependent redundancy with the phytochrome A photoreceptor. As with vernalization and photoperiod, ambient temperature ultimately affects expression of the floral pathway integrator FT.
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