Dataset Information

Characterization of FLOWERING LOCUS T1 (FT1) gene in Brachypodium and wheat.

ABSTRACT: The phase transition from vegetative to reproductive growth is a critical event in the life cycle of flowering plants. FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) plays a central role in the regulation of this transition by integrating signals from multiple flowering pathways in the leaves and transmitting them to the shoot apical meristem. In this study, we characterized FT homologs in the temperate grasses Brachypodium distachyon and polyploid wheat using transgenic and mutant approaches. Downregulation of FT1 by RNAi was associated with a significant downregulation of the FT-like genes FT2 and FT4 in Brachypodium and FT2 and FT5 in wheat. In a transgenic wheat line carrying a highly-expressed FT1 allele, FT2 and FT3 were upregulated under both long and short days. Overexpression of FT1 caused extremely early flowering during shoot regeneration in both Brachypodium and hexaploid wheat, and resulted in insufficient vegetative tissue to support the production of viable seeds. Downregulation of FT1 transcripts by RNA interference (RNAi) resulted in non-flowering Brachypodium plants and late flowering plants (2-4 weeks delay) in wheat. A similar delay in heading time was observed in tetraploid wheat plants carrying mutations for both FT-A1 and FT-B1. Plants homozygous only for mutations in FT-B1 flowered later than plants homozygous only for mutations in FT-A1, which corresponded with higher transcript levels of FT-B1 relative to FT-A1 in the early stages of development. Taken together, our data indicate that FT1 plays a critical role in the regulation of flowering in Brachypodium and wheat, and that this role is associated with the simultaneous regulation of other FT-like genes. The differential effects of mutations in FT-A1 and FT-B1 on wheat heading time suggest that different allelic combinations of FT1 homoeologs could be used to adjust wheat heading time to improve adaptation to changing environments.

SUBMITTER: Lv B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3981775 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Characterization of FLOWERING LOCUS T1 (FT1) gene in Brachypodium and wheat.

Lv Bo B Nitcher Rebecca R Han Xiuli X Wang Shuyun S Ni Fei F Li Kun K Pearce Stephen S Wu Jiajie J Dubcovsky Jorge J Fu Daolin D

PloS one 20140409 4

The phase transition from vegetative to reproductive growth is a critical event in the life cycle of flowering plants. FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) plays a central role in the regulation of this transition by integrating signals from multiple flowering pathways in the leaves and transmitting them to the shoot apical meristem. In this study, we characterized FT homologs in the temperate grasses Brachypodium distachyon and polyploid wheat using transgenic and mutant approaches. Downregulation of FT1 by ...[more]

PMID: 24718312

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Project description:To date, a small number of major flowering time loci have been identified in the related Triticeae crops, bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), durum wheat (T. durum), and barley (Hordeum vulgare). Natural genetic variants at these loci result in major phenotypic changes which have adapted crops to the novel environments encountered during the spread of agriculture. The polyploid nature of bread and durum wheat means that major flowering time loci in which recessive alleles confer adaptive advantage in related diploid species have not been readily identified. One such example is the PPD-H2 flowering time locus encoded by FLOWERING LOCUS T 3 (HvFT3) in the diploid crop barley, for which recessive mutant alleles confer delayed flowering under short day (SD) photoperiods. In autumn-sown barley, such alleles aid the repression of flowering over the winter, which help prevent the development of cold-sensitive floral organs until the onset of inductive long day (LD) photoperiods the following spring. While the identification of orthologous loci in wheat could provide breeders with alternative mechanisms to fine tune flowering time, systematic identification of wheat orthologs of HvFT3 has not been reported. Here, we characterize the FT gene families in six Poaceae species, identifying novel members in all taxa investigated, as well as FT3 homoeologs from the A, B and D genomes of hexaploid (TaFT3) and tetraploid wheat. Sequence analysis shows TaFT3 homoeologs display high similarity to the HvFT3 coding region (95-96%) and predicted protein (96-97%), with conservation of intron/exon structure across the five cereal species investigated. Genetic mapping and comparative analyses in hexaploid and tetraploid wheat find TaFT3 homoeologs map to the long arms of the group 1 chromosomes, collinear to HvFT3 in barley and FT3 orthologs in rice, foxtail millet and brachypodium. Genome-specific expression analyses show FT3 homoeologs in tetraploid and hexaploid wheat are upregulated under SD photoperiods, but not under LDs, analogous to the expression of HvFT3. Collectively, these results indicate that functional wheat orthologs of HvFT3 have been identified. The molecular resources generated here provide the foundation for engineering a novel major flowering time locus in wheat using forward or reverse genetics approaches.

Dataset Information

Characterization of FLOWERING LOCUS T1 (FT1) gene in Brachypodium and wheat.

Publications

Characterization of FLOWERING LOCUS T1 (FT1) gene in Brachypodium and wheat.

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