RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Post-embryonic hourglass patterns mark ontogenetic transitions in plant development JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 035527 DO 10.1101/035527 A1 Hajk-Georg Drost A1 Julia Bellstäedt A1 Diarmuid S. Ó’Maoiléidigh A1 Anderson T. Silva A1 Alexander Gabel A1 Claus Weinholdt A1 Patrick T. Ryan A1 Bas J.W. Dekkers A1 Leónie Bentsink A1 Henk Hilhorst A1 Wilco Ligterink A1 Frank Wellmer A1 Ivo Grosse A1 Marcel Quint YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/12/28/035527.abstract AB The historic developmental hourglass concept depicts the convergence of animal embryos to a common form during the phylotypic period. Recently, it has been shown that a transcriptomic hourglass is associated with this morphological pattern, consistent with the idea of underlying selective constraints due to intense molecular interactions during body plan establishment. Although plants do not exhibit a morphological hourglass during embryogenesis, a transcriptomic hourglass has nevertheless been identified in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Here, we investigated whether plant hourglass patterns are also found post-embryonically. We found that the two main phase changes during the life cycle of Arabidopsis, from embryonic to vegetative and from vegetative to reproductive development, are associated with transcriptomic hourglass patterns. In contrast, flower development, a process dominated by organ formation, is not. This suggests that plant hourglass patterns are decoupled from organogenesis and body plan establishment. Instead, they may reflect general transitions through organizational checkpoints.