Humans have long admired flowers for their beauty and their crucial role in plant reproduction. The 'Unusual Floral Organs (UFO)' gene orchestrates the flowering process, dependent on cis-regulation, a process previously considered a "black box". Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Zachary Lippman and colleagues used CRISPR gene editing to investigate how non-coding DNA fragments, called cis-regulatory sequences, dictate UFO expression.
This research* could inform decisions about gene manipulation for crop improvement. The study focused on tomato Solanum lycopersicum and Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Researchers identified conserved, non-protein-coding DNA sequences that regulate UFO in both plants. Lippman noted the sequences' conservation suggests evolutionary importance in controlling gene expression. CRISPR was used to manipulate these sequences, revealing their impact on flowering. Deleting a sequence in tomatoes induced flowering, while deleting the corresponding sequence in Arabidopsis suppressed it.
CSHL postdoc Amy Lanctot stated, "It's fascinating that different deletions had opposite effects on flowering... It seems these sequences act together to balance each other out." This finding aids understanding of cis-regulatory fragment control over gene function, potentially allowing for better-targeted mutations.
* A. Lanctot, A. Hendelman, P. Udilovich, G.M. Robitaille, & Z.B. Lippman, Antagonizing cis-regulatory elements of a conserved flowering gene mediate developmental robustness, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (8) e2421990122, (2025).