Flowering Goes Underground

Flowering is a crucial step in plant life cycle and is therefore tightly controlled by both environmental and endogenous cues. The involvement of the aerial organs of the plant in the molecular mechanisms controlling floral transition has been extensively documented while the participation of the roots remains poorly investigated. However, the induction of flowering by photoperiod involves systemic signals that move in the phloem from leaves to sinks, and hence presumably reach the roots. We therefore performed a transcriptomic analysis of the roots during the induction of flowering in Arabidopsis thaliana and indeed identified a large number of differentially expressed genes. A reverse genetic approach further confirmed the pleiotropic effects of flowering time genes on root architecture.