JXB Advance Access originally published online on March 3, 2007
Journal of Experimental Botany 2007 58(5):909-916; doi:10.1093/jxb/erm015
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Flowering Newsletter Reviews |
Flowering and determinacy in maize
Plant Gene Expression Center, UC Berkeley and USDA-ARS, 800 Buchanan Avenue, Albany, CA 94710, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ebortiri{at}berkeley.edu
All plant organs are produced by meristems, groups of stem cells located in the tips of roots and shoots. Indeterminate meristems make an indefinite number of organs, whereas determinate meristems are consumed after making a specific number of organs. Maize is an ideal system to study the genetic control of meristem fate because of the contribution from determinate and indeterminate meristems to the overall inflorescence. Here, the latest work on meristem maintenance and organ specification in maize is reviewed. Genetic networks, such as the CLAVATA components of meristem maintenance and the ABC programme of flower development, are conserved between grasses and eudicots. Maize and rice appear to have conserved mechanisms of meristem maintenance and organ identity. Other pathways, such as sex determination, are likely to be found only in maize with its separate male and female flowers. A rich genetic history has resulted in a large collection of maize mutants. The advent of genomic tools and synteny across the grasses now permits the isolation of the genes behind inflorescence architecture and the ability to compare function across the Angiosperms.
Key words: Determinacy, flowers, inflorescence, maize, meristem, spikelets
Received 21 November 2006; Revised 10 January 2007 Accepted 17 January 2007
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