14 DAY TRIAL // University of Texas at Austin scientists wandered how plants knew when winter was over, so that they could bloom in spring, and their research led them to a special molecule that helps plants remember winter.
They carried out their work on the Arabidopsis plant, and they found the way that blooming works.
During fall, a gene called FLC stops floral production, since a random bloom in fall would only be a waste of energy.
Then, after the plant has been exposed to 20 days of almost freezing temperatures, Sibum Sung, assistant professor in the Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, and postdoctoral fellow Jae Bok Heo, found that a long, non-coding RNA molecule called COLDAIR, that is necessary for setting a memory of winter for the plant, becomes active.
It starts inhibiting the FLC gene, and finishes the process after nearly 30-40 days of cold.
This way, as the temperatures rise in spring, they activate other genes that start the blooming process.
What COLDAIR actually does is help create some sort of cellular memory for the plant, which lets it know that 30 or more days of cold have past.
There are countless flowering plants that burst of color in spring, after a long winter, and the time of blooming is very important, since pollination and crop production depend on it.
The plants need to recognize the spring, and not get confused by a warm spell during winter, so this 'remembering' mechanism is helping them do that.
Sung said that “plants can't literally remember, of course, because they don't have brains.
“But they do have a cellular memory of winter, and our research provides details on how this process works.”
This process is called vernalization, and it means that a plant becomes competent to flower after a period of cold.
The researchers don't actually know how cold turns on COLDAIR, but according to Sung, “that is one of the next questions we have.”
It would be interesting to know “how do plants literally sense the cold,” and having an answer to these questions could lead to crop improvements.
A better knowledge on crops will soon be necessary since climate change is affecting the length of the winter season, and this could affect vernalization in plants all over the world.
The current research was supported with funds from the National Science Foundation and The University of Texas at Austin, and it was published in Science Express.