Biotech Updates

Scientists Seek to Fine Tune Flowering Time

April 30, 2014

Researchers at the John Innes Centre are investigating on the function of non-coding RNA particularly its role in expression of genes involved in flowering time. According to Prof. Caroline Dean, the study started when more long non-coding RNA are being detected in many genomes. However, their biological role remains a mystery. Thus, they started studying the control of expression of Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) gene. This control relies on a set of long non-coding antisense transcripts from FLC, collectively referred to as COOLAIR. As FLC levels correlate with a delay in flowering, the researchers seek to explain how flowering can be controlled by the splicing of a long non-coding RNA.

Read more information at http://news.jic.ac.uk/2014/04/fine-tuning-of-flowering-time/.