Skip Navigation


JXB Advance Access originally published online on May 14, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(9):2517-2527; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp159
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
60/9/2517    most recent
erp159v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Irish, V. F.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Irish, V. F.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Irish, V. F.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author [2009]. 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

Evolution of petal identity

Vivian F. Irish*

Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 266 Whitney Ave., New Haven, CT 06520-8104, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: E-mail: Vivian.irish{at}yale.edu

Petals appear in many angiosperm taxa, yet when and how these attractive organs originated remains unclear. Phylogenetic reconstructions based on morphological data suggest that petals have evolved multiple times during the radiation of the angiosperms. Based on the diversity of petal morphologies, it is likely that the developmental programmes specifying petal identity are distinct in different lineages. On the other hand, molecular genetic analyses have suggested that the specification of petal identity in different lineages utilizes similar genetic pathways. Together, these observations indicate that the evolution of petals has relied on the repeated recruitment of a suite of interacting developmental control genes, albeit in different ways in different lineages. These observations suggest that this gene regulatory network represents a ‘deep homology’ in plant evolution. A major challenge is to understand how this ancestral developmental pathway has been redeployed in different angiosperm lineages, and how changes in the workings of this pathway have led to the myriad shapes, colours, and sizes of petals.

Key words: Angiosperm, Arabidopsis, development, evolution, flower, MADS, petal

Received 31 March 2009; Revised 14 April 2009 Accepted 17 April 2009


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.