Establishment and Maintenance of the Barley Inflorescence Meristem

The first reproductive meristem, i.e. inflorescence meristem (IM), provides the foundation for all floral variation. Intriguingly, in all of these early developmental events of patterning and morphogenesis, hormonal regulation in concerted action together with transcriptional regulators drive development; in fact, one of such important regulators belongs to the family of homeodomain (HD) containing WOX (WUSCHEL-related homeobox) proteins that define various roles during stem cell niche patterning, cell division and organ formation. In cereal crops, IM establishment, maintenance and signaling are not at all well understood. Fundamental knowledge, such as cellular positioning of the IM stem cell niche, organizing cells or peripheral zone, is completely missing in many important cereal crops including barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). If we want to better understand how a barley inflorescence, called spike, is formed, a more fundamental insight into the cellular patterning of the shoot apex is clearly essential. The major working hypothesis of this research project is that barley WOX (HvWOX) genes play an important role during the establishment and maintenance of the barley IM, and that newly evolved and diverged HvWOX gene regulation has occurred in barley (and possibly other Triticeae species).