Photoperiodic flowering regulation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Photoperiod, or the duration of light in a given day, is a critical cue that flowering plants utilize to effectively assess seasonal information and coordinate their reproductive development in synchrony with the external environment. The use of the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, has greatly improved our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that determine how plants process and utilize photoperiodic information to coordinate a flowering response. This mechanism is typified by the transcriptional activation of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene by the transcription factor CONSTANS (CO) under inductive long-day conditions in Arabidopsis. FT protein then moves from the leaves to the shoot apex, where floral meristem development can be initiated. As a point of integration from a variety of environmental factors in the context of a larger system of regulatory pathways that affect flowering, the importance of photoreceptors and the circadian clock in CO regulation throughout the day has been a key feature of the photoperiodic flowering pathway. In addition to these established mechanisms, the recent discovery of a photosynthate derivative trehalose-6-phosphate as an activator of FT in leaves has interesting implications for the involvement of photosynthesis in the photoperiodic flowering response that were suggested from previous physiological experiments in flowering induction.