TY - JOUR T1 - ELF3 polyQ variation in <em>Arabidopsis thaliana</em> reveals a PIF4-independent role in thermoresponsive flowering JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/038257 SP - 038257 AU - Maximilian O. Press AU - Amy Lanctot AU - Christine Queitsch Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/01/29/038257.abstract N2 - Plants have elaborate genetic mechanisms controlling developmental responses to environmental stimuli. A particularly important environmental parameter is temperature. Previous work has identified ELF3 and PIF4 as key players in the Arabidopsis thaliana temperature response, and the ELF3 polyglutamine (polyQ) domain as a source of functional variability in ELF3. We used transgenic analysis to test the hypothesis that ELF3 polyQ variation modulates temperature sensing as an input to temperature-mediated morphological changes. We found little evidence that the polyQ domain has a specific role in temperature sensing beyond mediating overall ELF3 function. Instead, we made the serendipitous discovery that ELF3 plays a role in thermoresponsive flowering at elevated temperatures, a response previously shown to require PIF4. Unexpectedly, ELF3’s role in thermoresponsive flowering was independent of PIF4. Here, we present evidence that ELF3 acts through the photoperiodic pathway, indicating a previously unknown symmetry between low and high ambient temperature responses. These findings tie together disparate observations into a coherent framework in which multiple pathways converge in accelerating flowering in response to temperature, with some such pathways modulated by photoperiod. ER -