PARG1 and EXA1 genes as possible components of the facultative epigenetic control of plant development.

Plants are able to adjust their developmental program in response to incremental environmental changes by reprogramming the epigenomes of the cells. This process, known as facultative epigenetic developmental control, underlies plant developmental plasticity and the amazing diversity of morphotypes, which arises from the changes in cell fates. How plants determine when epigenome reprogramming should occur is largely unclear.

DNA topoisomerase I alpha is required for adaptive response to light and flower development.

DNA topoisomerase I alpha (TOP1α) plays a specific role in development and is required for stem cell regulation in shoot and floral meristems. Recently, a new role independent of meristem functioning has been described for TOP1α, namely flowering time regulation. The same feature had been detected by us earlier for , a mutant allele of In this study we clarify the effects of on bolting initiation and analyze the molecular basis of its role on flowering time regulation.

Evolutionary Divergence of Arabidopsis thaliana Classical Peroxidases.

Polymorphisms of 62 peroxidase genes derived from Arabidopsis thaliana were investigated to evaluate evolutionary dynamics and divergence of peroxidase proteins. By comparing divergence of duplicated genes AtPrx53-AtPrx54 and AtPrx36-AtPrx72 and their products, nucleotide and amino acid substitutions were identified that were apparently targets of positive selection. These substitutions were detected among paralogs of 461 ecotypes from Arabidopsis thaliana.

[Studying the role of FASCIATA5 gene in the regulation of flower development in Arabidopsis thaliana].

Identification of new genes involved in the control of flower initiation and development, is an important problem of the plant developmental genetics. Central approach to solve it is the study of mutants with changes in these characters. The effect of pleiotropic mutation fasciata5 on the transition to the reproductive stage and flower development was studied.

[Pleiotropic effect of the fas5 mutation on the shoot development of Arabidopsis thaliana].

The paper described a new mutation that causes the development of multiple meristematic foci as part of shoot apical meristem, which can give rise to new stem axes or cause stem fasciation. The wus-1 mutation represses development of additional apical meristem in fas5 mutant, indicating to the sequential action of the genes in the formation of the shoot apical meristem and FAS5 gene participation in spatial restriction of the WUS gene expression. This function gene FAS5 performs independently of other negative regulators of WUS gene--namely genes CLV, as demonstrated by additive phenotype of double mutants fas5 clv2-1 and fas5 clv3-2.