Dr. Neelima Sinha （Section of Plant Biology, University of California）

2007年01月18日(木) 15:00 より 17:00 まで

明大寺地区１階会議室（１１１）

植物発生遺伝学研究部門 塚谷裕一 tsukaya@nibb.ac.jp

The Class I Knotted-like homeobox (KNOX 1) genes are highly expressed in the shoot apical meristem but not expressed in the emerging leaf primordium in tobacco, maize, or Arabidopsis. We have analyzed compound leaf producing shoot apices in clades with independently derived compound leaves and shown that with one exception (a derived clade in the Fabaceae) compound leaves always show expression of KNOX genes (Bharathan et al., 2002). In the derived pea clade the LFY/FLO gene regulates this function of generating leaf complexity. We have explored the function of LFY in the basal and derived clades in the Fabaceae. In addition, we find that other genes like PHANTASTICA might play a role in determining the form of the compound leaf generated. Global gene expression profiling, genomics and quantitative trait locus analysis are being used to identify other factors that might regulate leaf complexity.
This research is funded by the National Science Foundation.