Just say no: floral repressors help Arabidopsis bide the time

Floral repressors ensure correct reproductive timing by safeguarding against premature flowering. In the past decade, several mechanisms of floral repression have come to light. Discrimination between direct and indirect repressors has been facilitated by increasing the use of chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. Certain MADS-domain transcription factors such as SHORT VEGETATIVE PHASE and FLOWERING LOCUS C bind directly to target euchromatin to repress specific loci including FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) and FD. The AP2-domain transcription factor TEMPRANILLO 1 has also been shown to directly repress FT by binding its 5′ UTR. We highlight emerging systems level approaches, including genome-scale direct binding studies (ChIP-chip and ChIP-Seq), which stand out in their promise to elucidate the complex network underlying the transition to flowering at an unprecedented level.