Ancient asymmetries in the evolution of flowers

  1. Cubas, P. 12
  2. Coen, E. 3
  3. Zapater, J.M.M. 12
  1. 1 Centro Nacional de Biotecnología
    info

    Centro Nacional de Biotecnología

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/015w4v032

  2. 2 Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01cby8j38

  3. 3 John Innes Centre
    info

    John Innes Centre

    Norwich, Reino Unido

    ROR https://ror.org/055zmrh94

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Zeitschrift:
Current Biology

ISSN: 0960-9822

Datum der Publikation: 2001

Ausgabe: 11

Nummer: 13

Seiten: 1050-1052

Art: Artikel

DOI: 10.1016/S0960-9822(01)00295-0 PMID: 11470410 SCOPUS: 2-s2.0-0035838386 GOOGLE SCHOLAR

Andere Publikationen in: Current Biology

Institutionelles Repository: lock_openOpen Access Editor

Zusammenfassung

Dorsoventral asymmetry in flowers is thought to have evolved many times independently as a specialized adaptation to animal pollinators [1, 2]. To understand how such a complex trait could have arisen repeatedly, we have compared the expression of a gene controlling dorsoventral asymmetry in Antirrhinum with its counterpart in Arabidopsis, a distantly related species with radially symmetrical flowers. We found that the Arabidopsis gene is expressed asymmetrically in floral meristems, even though they are destined to form symmetrical flowers. This suggests that, although the flowers of the common ancestor were probably radially symmetrical, they may have had an incipient asymmetry, evident at the level of early gene activity, which could have been recruited many times during evolution to generate asymmetric flowers.