For the American religious leader, see
Leafy Anderson. For the Barmy Army co-founder, see
Paul Burnham. For the online personality terminated from YouTube, see
LeafyIsHere.
LEAFY (abbreviated LFY) is a
plantgene that causes groups of undifferentiated
cells called
meristems to develop into
flowers instead of leaves with associated
shoots.[1]
LEAFY is involved in floral meristem identity.
LEAFY encodes a plant-specific
transcription factor, is found in all land plants and in charophytes[2] and one of its
exons have been used extensively in phylogenetic work on
spermatophytes.[3] When the gene is
overexpressed, the plant is less sensitive to environmental signals and flowers earlier.[4]
The LEAFY protein has two conserved domains: the DNA binding domain, a
Helix-Turn-Helix motif buried inside a unique 7-helix fold[5] and a
Sterile Alpha Motif.[6] It binds DNA as a dimer and its binding site has been identified both in vivo and in vitro.[7][8] The F-box protein Unusual Floral Organs (UFO) is able to redirect LFY to binding sites that LFY cannot access alone and, together, they regulate genes involved in petal and stamen development (such as APETALA3, PISTILLATA or RABBIT EARS).[9]