Vernalization is acquisition of the capacity to flower following prolonged cold. In Arabidopsis thaliana, persistent silencing of the floral repressor FLC helps retain information about winter after temperatures rise.
The memory's lifetime differs from its acquisition. Experiments on resetting between generations show why an individual plant can remember cold while its descendants still need their own cold exposure. Perennial plants can use different seasonal reactivation patterns, as illustrated by PEP1 in Arabis alpina.[ref]
Epigenetic reprogramming that prevents transgenerational inheritance of the vernalized state by Pedro Crevillén and others. 2014, resetting of vernalization memory
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