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SUMMARY:An integrated structural biology approach to flower development - 
 Francois Parcy\, Grenoble
DTSTART:20150319T130000Z
DTEND:20150319T140000Z
UID:TALK56936@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:38889
DESCRIPTION:\nThe development of flowers is controlled by a gene regulator
 y network involving a cascade of transcription factors such as LEAFY (LFY)
  and MONOPTEROS  (also called ARF5). Such transcription factors read and i
 nterpret the genomic information to drive the developmental progression an
 d ensure the gene expression reprogramming needed for floral development. 
 We use an integrated structural approach combining crystallography\, genom
 ics and modeling to understand how these transcription factors work\, how 
 they evolved and what roles they fulfill in plants.\n\nI will present how 
 we unraveled a new role for LFY in the emergence of stem cells by perturbi
 ng the dimerization of its DNA binding domain (DBD)1. We have also studied
  the evolution of this DBD: we found that LEAFY changed DNA binding specif
 icity at least twice during evolution\; we provide a structural explanatio
 n for these changes as well as a plausible smooth evolutionary pathway to 
 explain how plants could tolerate that an essential factor evolved indepen
 dently of duplications.\n\nFinally\, our structural approach also revealed
  that both LFY and ARF53 possess an oligomerization domain in addition to 
 their dimeric DBD. We combined a biochemical approach\, ChIP-seq experimen
 ts and the LFY DNA binding predictive model to show that oligomerization h
 as a profound influence on LFY genomic DNA binding landscape4.\n\n1: Chaht
 ane et al. Plant Journal 2013\n\n2: Sayou et al. Science 2014 and http://y
 outu.be/Yvk3ond-WHk\n\n3: Nanao et al. Nature Commun. 2014 
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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