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Gene network controls how many flowers and fruits plants make

There is staggering diversity in the number of flowers produced by each of the 2,800 or so species of plants in the nightshade family, which includes economically important crops such as tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes. Some nightshades, such as pepper, produce a single flower, while others, such as tomatoes, give rise to branches bearing multiple flowers.

Why the dramatic differences between such closely related species? While the development of individual flowers is well understood, it has been unclear what mechanisms control how many branches a plant will produce and how many flowers will grow from each branch.

Associate Professor Zachary Lippman and a team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have used RNA sequencing to identify a network of hundreds of genes that work together to determine the duration of a critical window for the growth of stem cells in plants that give rise to flowers. The longer this window remains open, the more stem cells develop and the more flowers and branches that can grow.

The team has also demonstrated that eliminating the activity of three specific genes in this network from tomato plants - genes whose activation usually leads to the production of several flowers - results in plants that produce just one or two flowers.

"Evolution has taken advantage of the flexibility of the plant's growth schedule in order to create a remarkable diversity in flower production," says Lippman.

Read more at phys.org
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