Seminars

Plant development and survival is tuned in response to endogenous and environmental cues in the context of chromatin. All living plant cells can be triggered to de-differentiate, to assume a different identity, or to form an entire new organism. My lab is particularly interested in the series of events that lead from cue perception to transcriptional, epigenetic and cellular reprogramming during the spatiotemporal control of flower formation. The stereotypical arrangement of flowers on the primary inflorescence stem determines the species-specific inflorescence architecture, reproductive fitness and yield. Cues that direct initiation of flower primordia include plant hormones such as auxin and gibberellin, photoperiod, temperature, nutrient sensing, stress and more. How this multitude of possible cues is interpreted to trigger the vital (and frequently irreversible) developmental transition to making flowers is not understood. I will discuss new mechanistic insight into the question how photoperiod and auxin tune the timing and positioning of flower primordium initiation, respectively.