Natural selection has always favoured those equipped to survive under stressful circumstances. Wether through personal perseverance or through their genetic offspring this often requires flexibility in the organism’s life style/cycles. Plants flowering (and by association reproduction) is usually highly coordinated with specific endogenous and external cues for obvious reasons. Amazingly experiments using Arabidopsis thaliana as a model have shown that under stressful circumstances such as infection and exposure to UV-C light, usual flowering pathways are by-passed and flowering time is accelerated.
When subjected to prolonged UV-C light salicylic acid (SA) accumulates in Arabidopsis thaliana’s system and triggers this phenomenon. NahG transgenic, sid1/eds5 and sid2 plants that cannot increase SA concentration do not display shorting of flowering time. Even more exciting SA has also been linked to plant defense responses, gene expression during leaf senescence, thermogenicity, cell growth, cell death, regulation of FLOWERING LOCUS C and even other regulation of flowering time through different pathways in non-stressed plants!
Aiding survival under extenuating circumstances, the fluctuating levels of SA gives plants an advantage in the earth’s current (past and future) unpredictable environmental conditions. This research also provides room for further investigation and the flexing of young scientists microscopes with the hope of more intriguing discoveries.
When subjected to prolonged UV-C light salicylic acid (SA) accumulates in Arabidopsis thaliana’s system and triggers this phenomenon. NahG transgenic, sid1/eds5 and sid2 plants that cannot increase SA concentration do not display shorting of flowering time. Even more exciting SA has also been linked to plant defense responses, gene expression during leaf senescence, thermogenicity, cell growth, cell death, regulation of FLOWERING LOCUS C and even other regulation of flowering time through different pathways in non-stressed plants!
Aiding survival under extenuating circumstances, the fluctuating levels of SA gives plants an advantage in the earth’s current (past and future) unpredictable environmental conditions. This research also provides room for further investigation and the flexing of young scientists microscopes with the hope of more intriguing discoveries.
-
Written by: Christina Harris (41396751)
-
Primary Reference
-
Martínez, C, Pons, E, Prats, G & León, J 2004, ‘Salicylic acid regulates flowering time and links defence responses and reproductive development’, The Plant Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 209–217
-
Secondary References
Boss, PK, Bastow, RM, Mylne, JS & Dean, C 2004, ‘Multiple Pathways in the Decision to Flower: Enabling, Promoting, and Resetting (in Flower Development)’, The Plant Cell, vol. 16, pp. S18-S31.
Malamy, J, Carr, JP, Klessig, DF & Raskin, I 1990, ‘Salicylic Acid: A Likely Endogenous Signal in the Resistance Response of Tobacco to Viral Infection’, Science, vol. 250, no. 4983, pp. 1002-1004
Raskin, I, Ehmann, A, Melander, WR, & Meeuse, BJD 1987, ‘Salicylic Acid: A Natural Inducer of Heat Production in Arum Lilies’, Science, vol. 237, no. 4822, pp. 1601-1602.
Sheldon, CC, Rouse, DT, Finnegan, EJ, Peacock, WJ, & Dennis, ES 2000, ‘The Molecular Basis of Vernalization: The Central Role of FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC)’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 97, no. 7, pp. 3753-3758.
