| For a plant, the decision to flower marks a redirection of energy from growth that benefits the individual to growth that benefits the next generation. Because plants are limited by their immobility, they must be capable of gathering information about their environment in order to determine when conditions are favorable for reproduction. Therefore, this transition is highly regulated, relying on information from a combination of internal and external factors. Three major pathways have been described in the regulation of flowering time: the autonomous, vernalization, and photoperiod pathways, in addition to several other factors and complexes. The autonomous pathway in Arabidopsis, the focus of this work, "classically" consists of seven genes that promote flowering independently of environmental signals. I show that members of the autonomous pathway are act redundantly to regulate other aspects of vegetative and reproductive development outside of their roles in flowering time. Finally, I show that two of the seven members of the autonomous pathway are capable of directly binding one another at the protein level in a plant system. Overall this work greatly contributes to our understanding of how the genes that regulate flowering time in Arabidopsis are functioning at the molecular level. |
