Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne, Germany.
Plant Sciences Department, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Elife. 2018 Oct 18;7:e39399. doi: 10.7554/eLife.39399.
Invariant floral forms are important for reproductive success and robust to natural perturbations. Petal number, for example, is invariant in flowers. However, petal number varies in the closely related species , and the genetic basis for this difference between species is unknown. Here we show that divergence in the pleiotropic floral regulator () can account for the species-specific difference in petal number robustness. This large effect of is explained by epistatic interactions: confers robustness by masking the phenotypic expression of quantitative trait loci controlling petal number in . We show that fails to complement this function of , conferring variable petal number, and that upstream regulatory regions of contribute to this divergence. Moreover, variable petal number is maintained in despite sufficient standing genetic variation in natural accessions to produce plants with four-petalled flowers.
不变的花型对于繁殖成功很重要，并且能够抵抗自然干扰。例如，花瓣数量在 花中是不变的。然而，在密切相关的物种中，花瓣数量会发生变化，而物种之间这种差异的遗传基础尚不清楚。在这里，我们表明，多效性花调控因子 () 的分化可以解释花瓣数量稳健性的种间差异。 的这种大效应可以用上位性相互作用来解释：通过掩盖控制花瓣数量的数量性状基因座的表型表达， 赋予了稳健性。我们表明， 不能补充 的这一功能，导致花瓣数量的变化，并且 的上游调控区导致了这种分化。此外，尽管在自然种群中存在足以产生四瓣花的植物的遗传变异，但 中的可变花瓣数量仍然得以维持。
