Plant Development
The general pathways for establishing cell fates in animals are seen in plants, but the molecules involved are very different than those found in animal development.
Model system is Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant.
The genome of Arabidopsis is a haploid complemetn of five chromsomes, comparable in size and complexity to the genome of Drosophila.
Flower Development
A series of transcriptional regulators determine the fate of the four layers of the flower. These act in a way that is similar to the way homeotic gene clusters found in animal development control segmental identity.
Several genes have been identified that, when knocked out, transform one or more of the layers into another. This is similar to the experiments with the knockout mice.
The flower-identity genes encode a series of structurally related transcription factors similar to the transcription factors coded by the homeotic gene clusters in animals.