Flowering, mystery and discovery

2007/06/10 Rementeria Argote, Nagore - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Biokimika
• Botanika

Many of the research on flowering was carried out with the climbing plant Ezkerte (Photo: P. P. In Bussel, www.kuleuven-kortrijk.be/bioweb/ ).

The flowering of the plants is beautiful, arouses some emotion. The flowers are aesthetically spectacular. And from the point of view of biochemistry they are also tempting, since for years they have not managed to reach it with precision. Now it seems that they have found the key to flowering and we would say that the mystery has begun to unveil.

The key to flowering is known in biochemistry as florigene. This name was first used by the Russian Chailakhyan to refer to a special substance: florigene is a substance that gives order to grow a flower instead of growing a new leaf on a plant. XIX. In the first half of the twentieth century, the research of botany and the physiology of plants provoked a great curiosity.

However, the very concept of florigene is much older than its name, around the year 1865. Apparently, the German botanist Julius von Sachs discovered that light affected the flowering of the plants. He did the following experiment to see how it affected: he put a left plant in the dark and gave birth to a single leaf. Well, the plant flourished. Thus, von Sachs concluded that the order to remove flowers came out of the leaf.

In search of the florigene

The knowledge of the mechanism of flowering of a plant is more interesting than expected, not only for the simple knowledge, but for the romantic sense that flowers can have, especially for being a way of controlling the harvest. There are practical reasons. If you want to have more than one crop a year to increase agricultural production, it is essential that the plant bloom more than once. Therefore, it is not a matter of joke.

The key of flowering plants is known by experts as florigene and is very interesting because it can help control the harvest

MEC

The researchers have been trying for years to control the flowering of the plants and to do this they need to know the biochemistry of the event. In this route several compounds related to the flowering have been found, but it has cost them quite to find the florigene.

Of course, the essence of flowering is in the genes. And they have found several genes related to flowering. Recently, much has been said about the FT gene because florigene could be a compound associated with this gene. It seems that they were on the right path, since, according to a study with rice and the Arabidopsis plant, florigene is a protein belonging to the FT gene.

This protein is, therefore, the substance that goes from the leaf of the plant to the new outbreak, the sign that the outbreak should be removed a flower instead of a new leaf. However, upon reaching this protein there have been numerous fluctuations over the nature of florigene, as is the case of some researchers who in 2005 declared that florigene was an RNA molecule. Everywhere it appeared that the key of the flowering was discovered at the end. But recently they have had to recognize that they were wrong and, what is more serious, concealed some research data to decorate the result.

As you see, sometimes you have to go back to advance, and this time it is. What is certain is that, in spite of everything, accepting things and recognizing those that must be recognized, the nature of florigene is clarified, at least in his opinion. And yet not all experts are completely sure that florigene is the protein of the FT gene, and perhaps some know that the research has not yet been completed to solve the mystery of florigene.

Published in 7K.