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Understanding the evolution of sex determination in plants requires identifying the mechanisms underlying the transition from monoecious plants, where male and female flowers coexist, to unisexual individuals found in dioecious species. We show that in melon and cucumber, the androecy gene controls female flower development and encodes a limiting enzyme of ethylene biosynthesis, ACS11. ACS11 is expressed in phloem cells connected to flowers programmed to become female, and ACS11 loss-of-function mutants lead to male plants (androecy). CmACS11 represses the expression of the male promoting gene CmWIP1 to control the development and the coexistence of male and female flowers in monoecious species. Because monoecy can lead to dioecy, we show how a combination of alleles of CmACS11 and CmWIP1 can create artificial dioecy.

Original publication

DOI

10.1126/science.aac8370

Type

Journal article

Journal

Science (New York, N.Y.)

Publication Date

11/2015

Volume

350

Pages

688 - 691

Addresses

Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Université d'Evry, Université Paris-Diderot, Bâtiment 630, 91405, Orsay, France.

Keywords

Cucurbitaceae, Cucumis sativus, Flowers, Ethylenes, Lyases, Plant Proteins, Amino Acid Sequence, Alleles, Genes, Plant, Molecular Sequence Data, Phloem, Biological Evolution, Sex Determination Processes