title: FLOOZY of petunia is a flavin mono-oxygenase-like protein required for the specification of leaf and flower architecture.
abstract: The mechanisms that determine the relative positions of floral organs, and thereby their numbers, is a poorly understood aspect of flower development. We isolated a petunia mutant, floozy (fzy), in which the formation of floral organ primordia in the outermost three floral whorls and one of the two bracts at the base of the flower is blocked at an early stage. In addition, fzy mutants fail to generate secondary veins in leaves and bracts and display a decreased apical dominance in the inflorescence. FZY encodes an enzyme with homology to flavin mono-oxygenases and appears to be the ortholog of YUCCA genes of Arabidopsis. FZY is expressed in young leafs and bracts and in developing flowers. In young floral meristems FZY is expressed in the center of the meristem dome and, later, expression becomes localized on the flanks of the initiating petal and stamen primordia and at several sites in maturing anthers and carpels. These findings indicate that FZY is involved in synthesizing a signaling compound that is required for floral organ initiation and specification of the vascularization pattern in leaves. Although fzy mutants contain normal auxin levels, ectopic expression of FZY results in excessive auxin accumulation, suggesting that the signaling compound is auxin.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Genetics, Institute for Molecular Biological Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Biocentrum Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tobeña-Santamaria
authors.forename: Mattijs
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bliek
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ljung
authors.forename: Göran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sandberg
authors.forename: Joseph N M
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Mol
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Souer
authors.forename: Ronald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Koes
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000502:physiology; D005415:Flavins / Q000737:chemistry; D017343:Genes, Plant; D007210:Indoleacetic Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010105:Oxygenases / Q000378:metabolism*; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D005415:Flavins; D007210:Indoleacetic Acids; D010940:Plant Proteins; D010105:Oxygenases; C020066:dimethylaniline monooxygenase (N-oxide forming)