Memory of the vernalized state in plants including the model grass Brachypodium distachyon.pdf

PERSPECTIVE ARTICLE published: 25 March 2014 doi: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00099 Memory of the vernalized state in plants including the model grass Brachypodium distachyon Daniel P.Woods1,2,3 ,Thomas S. Ream1,2 ? and Richard M. Amasino1,2* 1 Department of Biochemistry, University ofWisconsin-Madison, Madison,WI, USA 2 U.S. Department of Energy–Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, University ofWisconsin-Madison, Madison,WI, USA 3 Laboratory of Genetics, University ofWisconsin-Madison, Madison,WI, USA Edited by: George Coupland, Max Planck Society, Germany Reviewed by: Paula Casati, Centro de Estudios Fotosinteticos – Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina Iain Robert Searle, The University of Adelaide, Australia *Correspondence: Richard M. Amasino, Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 433 Babcock Drive, Madison,WI 53706-1544, USA e-mail: amasino@ ?Present address: Thomas S. Ream, Monsanto Company, 700 Chesterfield Parkway West, Chesterfield, MO, USA Plant species that have a vernalization requirement exhibit variation in the ability to “remember” winter – i.e., variation in the stability of the vernalized state. Studies in Arabidopsis have demonstrated that molecular memory involves changes in the chromatin state and expression of the flowering repressor FLOWERING LOCUS C, and have revealed that single-gene differences can have large effects on the stability of the vernalized state. In the perennialArabidopsis relativeArabis alpina, the lack ofmemory ofwinter is critical for its perennial life history. Our studies of flowering behavior in the model grass Brachypodium distachyon reveal extensive variation in the vernalization requirement, and studies of a particularBrachypodium accession that has a qualitative requirement for both cold exposure and inductive day length to flower reveal that Brachypodium can exhibit a highly stable vernalized state. Keywords: vernalization, flowering, Brachypodium, epigenetics, life his