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Abstract Flower development is a very important event in the development of higher plant, which can be divided into floral induction, floral initiation and floral organ specification. The genetic control of flower development is a very complex network of regulatory genes. In the past 2 to 3 decades, many genes or regulators of flower development have been identified and cloned in model plants, with a new class of regulatory factors- microRNAs(miRNAs) that were found at the beginning of this century. miRNAs are small approximately 21-nucleotide RNAs that function posttranscriptionally to regulate gene activity. miRNAs function by binding to complementary sites in target genes causing mRNA degradation and/or translational repression of the target. miRNAs function broadly to control many aspects of plant development. This review focuses on molecular mechanisms, the methodologies of miRNA study, and the roles of 7 miRNA families in flower development from the earliest stages(floral induction) to very late stages(floral organ cell type specification), and further research focuses are also discussed.
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Received: 07 April 2011
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