Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 114, Issue 51, Pages E11037-E11046Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1618075114
Keywords
vernalization; flowering; Arabidopsis; Arabis alpina; binding-site evolution
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Funding
- Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
- Argentinean National Council of Sciences
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Science [EXC 1028]
- EU Marie Curie Innovative Training Network [SYSFLO 237909]
- ERC through HyLife
- Max Planck Society
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Genome-wide landscapes of transcription factor (TF) binding sites (BSs) diverge during evolution, conferring species-specific transcriptional patterns. The rate of divergence varies in different metazoan lineages but has not been widely studied in plants. We identified the BSs and assessed the effects on transcription of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) and PERPETUAL FLOWERING 1 (PEP1), two orthologous MADS-box TFs that repress flowering and confer vernalization requirement in the Brassicaceae species Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabis alpina, respectively. We found that only 14% of their BSs were conserved in both species and that these contained a CArG-box that is recognized by MADS-box TFs. The CArG-box consensus at conserved BSs was extended compared with the core motif. By contrast, species-specific BSs usually lacked the CArG-box in the other species. Flowering-time genes were highly over-represented among conserved targets, and their CArG-boxes were widely conserved among Brassicaceae species. Cold-regulated (COR) genes were also overrepresented among targets, but the cognate BSs and the identity of the regulated genes were usually different in each species. In cold, COR gene transcript levels were increased in flc and pep1-1 mutants compared with WT, and this correlated with reduced growth in pep1-1. Therefore, FLC orthologs regulate a set of conserved target genes mainly involved in reproductive development and were later independently recruited to modulate stress responses in different Brassicaceae lineages. Analysis of TF BSs in these lineages thus distinguishes widely conserved targets representing the core function of the TF from those that were recruited later in evolution.
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