Seeds for growth - Identification of transcriptional programs controlling seed growth and development from Arabidopsis to rice

The last decades have brought about a tremendous increase in our understanding in molecular mechansims of seed development. However, further progress appears to be haltered by three major constraints. First, seeds are compound structures that harbour many tissues and cell types. Currently, a reliable dissection is very difficult if not impossible since the structures are small and also buried within other tissues. Second, a number of experiments suggest that gene dosage is important and with this not the absolute but the relative gene expression levels seem to be crucial. Third, proper seed development involves many components that appear to act in a redundant manner. This together with the observation that especially transcription factors have been ident ified as major factors controlling seed development asks for a genomics approach. The recently identified cdka;1 mutant allows a genomic dissection of seed development and will enable us to enter new avenues exploring seed development. cdka;1 mutant ana lysis has already provided genetic evidence for a new signal transduction pathway that coordinates seed development. Here we propose a integrated functional and genomics work program based on the exploitation of this mutant to explore the molecular networ ks that regulate seed growth and development from Arabidopsis to rice.