Gene control of flowering time in higher plants

Flowering involves a transition process from vegetative growth to reproductive development, in which a series of routine changes take place in the shoot apical meristems from metabolic pathway to external phenotype. Expression of the genes related to flowering is the foundation for achieving the transition. Environmental factors (such as vernalization and photoperiod) and the growth status of cell itself induce the expression of the specific genes. A lot of achievements have been made recently in gene control for the determination of flowering time. The article reviews some new advances of such researches related to our work and the interesting field.