Novel functions of TCP5 in petal development and ethylene biosynthesis (Plant J.)

The flower is one of the most important organs of a plant as it provides fruits and seeds. Due to its economic value, flowers are studied extensively to understand its developmental process. Based on the popular ABC model of flower development, floral organ development is mostly regulated through the interaction of MADS box family of transcription factors (TFs). In this paper, they have studied the function of TCP5-like TFs is petal development. Triple knock out mutants (tcp5 tcp13 tcp17) result in wider petals and overexpression of TCP5 shows smaller petal size. Gene expression analysis suggests that ethylene biosynthesis and signaling are involved in this process. They have demonstrated that TCP5 as TF binds to the ACS2 promoter and ethylene pathway inhibitor was able to recover triple knockout phenotype. Altogether, this study suggests the function of TCP5 in ethylene-mediated regulation of petal growth. (Summary by Arif Ashraf) Plant J. 10.1111/tpj.13904