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JXB Advance Access originally published online on April 4, 2008
Journal of Experimental Botany 2008 59(6):1127-1135; doi:10.1093/jxb/ern070
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© The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press [on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

REVIEW-ARTICLE

FLC or not FLC: the other side of vernalization

Cristina Madeira Alexandre and Lars Hennig*

Institute of Plant Sciences and Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lars.hennig{at}ipw.biol.ethz.ch

Vernalization is the promotion of the competence for flowering by long periods of low temperatures such as those typically experienced during winters. In Arabidopsis, the vernalization response is, to a large extent, mediated by the repression of the floral repressor FLC, and the stable epigenetic silencing of FLC after cold treatments is essential for vernalization. In addition to FLC, other vernalization targets exist in Arabidopsis. In grasses, vernalization seems to be entirely independent of FLC. Here, the current understanding of FLC-independent branches of the vernalization pathway in Arabidopsis and vernalization without FLC in grasses is discussed. This review focuses on the role of AGL19, AGL24, and the MAF genes in Arabidopsis. Interestingly, vernalization acts through related molecular machineries on distinct targets. In particular, protein complexes similar to Drosophila Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 play a prominent role in establishing an epigenetic cellular memory for cold-regulated expression states of AGL19 and FLC. Finally, the similar network topology of the apparently independently evolved vernalization pathways of grasses and Arabidopsis is discussed.

Key words: AGL19, Arabidopsis, chromatin, epigenetics, FLC, flowering time, polycomb, PRC2, vernalization

Received 19 December 2007; Revised 11 February 2008 Accepted 15 February 2008


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