Poster Presentation International Plant Molecular Biology Conference 2024

Genome-wide Analysis of Expression Signatures Driven by Genetic Regulators Identify Key Pathways in Rice Floral Meristem Establishment and its Determinate Development (#175)

Raghavaram Peesapati 1 2 3 , Grace Lhaineikim Chongloi 4 , Heeba Anjum 1 2 3 , Sandhan Prakash 1 5 , Rashmi Rai 1 , Mohit Kumar Jolly 3 , Usha Vijayraghavan 1
  1. Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology , Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
  2. Indian Institute of Science Mathematics Initiative (IMI), IMI, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
  3. Department of Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
  4. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
  5. Department of Biology, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States of America

The development of the apical inflorescence/ panicle meristem is characterized by the generation of a series of primary and secondary branch meristems, which terminate as spikelet meristem, each with a single floret meristem. The switch in the identity of the meristem and subsequent organ development is well controlled by genetic networks involving floral homeotic genes that are functionally characterized by several mutant studies. Global transcriptome analysis was performed over three broad development pools in wild-type panicles representing floral meristem maintenance, organ differentiation, and development to gain insight into the inflorescence development. Co-expressed genes were identified and analyzed to check the enriched biological pathways that are characteristic of the respective development pools. Available rice inflorescence single-cell transcriptome was used to infer the resultant co-expressed gene sets. Meta-analysis was performed over publicly available mutant transcriptome and microarray data sets of crucial MADS-box genes, including OsM1, OsM34, OsM6, OsM32, and other class genes that are crucial in floral meristem maintenance, organ boundary, and organ identity. Comparative analysis was performed using the available mutant transcriptome and co-expressed gene sets that drive us to construct gene regulatory networks that help us to understand the genetic control in inflorescence development. In this temporal gene regulatory network, we observed a network motif with two LOFSEP clade genes (OsM1, OsM34) dynamically regulating the meristem homeostasis genes (OSH1, OSH15) across the developmental transition. We propose that this network motif and its temporal regulation switch in the gene regulatory network are involved in developing determinate rice floret.