EVOGENE seminar: Marian Bemer - The evolution of MADS-domain transcription factors in the angiosperms

Angiosperm species display a huge variation in the form of their inflorescences, flowers and fruits. This diversity has evolved through modifications in the gene regulatory networks (GRNs), which underlie the development of these structures. To understand how gene evolution brings about the divergence of traits, we focus on the MADS-domain transcription factors, which play important roles in the GRNs that regulate flowering and fruit development. We study how gene regulatory networks can change between species, investigating both the specificity of protein-protein and of DNA-protein interactions, as well as divergence in expression profiles. The main topic of our studies is the MADS-domain transcription factor FRUITFULL (FUL), which has a conserved function in the regulation of flowering time, fruit development and woodiness throughout the angiosperms.