| Abstract Detail
Development and Structure Nikolov, Lachezar [1]. Tabula floris - panoramic view of the cell types of the flower. One of the defining events in Earth’s history is the origin of the flower, a highly compacted branch composed of modified leaves specialized in plant reproduction. The flower is the most complex plant structure and consists of elaborate organs that enclose the plant gametes. When fertilized, it gives rise to seeds and fruits - the major source of food for humanity. Labor-intensive forward genetic screens have facilitated the discovery of many gene activities controlling floral organ development but the diversity of floral cell types and the developmental decisions underlying their differentiation remain largely unexplored. We have generated a single-cell floral atlas, Tabula Floris, for the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. We have characterized the expression profiles of diverse cell populations in the flower and revealed unexpected complexity in well-studied cell types. We have further obtained spatial gene reporter activity of novel marker genes defining new cell types. We have developed a method to arrange the transcriptional profiles according to similarity, and used the pseudo-temporal progressions to extract gene cascades and derive gene co-expression networks underlying specialized floral cell physiology. We used this approach to identify novel transcriptional regulators in floral secretory cells and their metabolic gene targets. We have also compared the transcriptional programs involved in programmed cell death and secondary cell wall elaboration in different organs of the flower to identify shared gene modules and organ-specific components of the gene regulatory networks. This has permitted a glimpse into the specialization of the transcriptional programs and their deployment in different organ and developmental contexts of the flower.
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1 - UCLA, Molecular, Cell And Developmental Biology, 610 Charles E Young Dr East, 4018 TLSB Terasaki Life Sciences Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Keywords:
single-cell atlas
Brassicaceae
floral evolution.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: DS1, Development and Structure I
Location: /
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021
Time: 12:30 PM(EDT)
Number: DS1010
Abstract ID:202
Candidate for Awards:None |
