Dataset Information

Divergent roles of FT-like 9 in flowering transition under different day lengths in Brachypodium distachyon.

ABSTRACT: Timing of reproductive transition is precisely modulated by environmental cues in flowering plants. Facultative long-day plants, including Arabidopsis and temperate grasses, trigger rapid flowering in long-day conditions (LDs) and delay flowering under short-day conditions (SDs). Here, we characterize a SD-induced FLOWERING LOCUS T ortholog, FT-like 9 (FTL9), that promotes flowering in SDs but inhibits flowering in LDs in Brachypodium distachyon. Mechanistically, like photoperiod-inductive FT1, FTL9 can interact with FD1 to form a flowering activation complex (FAC), but the floral initiation efficiency of FTL9-FAC is much lower than that of FT1-FAC, thereby resulting in a positive role for FTL9 in promoting floral transition when FT1 is not expressed, but a dominant-negative role when FT1 accumulates significantly. We also find that CONSTANS 1 (CO1) can suppress FTL9 in addition to stimulate FT1 to enhance accelerated flowering under LDs. Our findings on the antagonistic functions of FTL9 under different day-length environments will contribute to understanding the multifaceted roles of FT in fine-tune modulation of photoperiodic flowering in plants.

SUBMITTER: Qin Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6379408 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Divergent roles of FT-like 9 in flowering transition under different day lengths in Brachypodium distachyon.

Qin Zhengrui Z Bai Yuxue Y Muhammad Sajid S Wu Xia X Deng Pingchuan P Wu Jiajie J An Hailong H Wu Liang L

Nature communications 20190218 1

Timing of reproductive transition is precisely modulated by environmental cues in flowering plants. Facultative long-day plants, including Arabidopsis and temperate grasses, trigger rapid flowering in long-day conditions (LDs) and delay flowering under short-day conditions (SDs). Here, we characterize a SD-induced FLOWERING LOCUS T ortholog, FT-like 9 (FTL9), that promotes flowering in SDs but inhibits flowering in LDs in Brachypodium distachyon. Mechanistically, like photoperiod-inductive FT1, ...[more]

PMID: 30778068

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Project description:Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium) is a model for the temperate grasses which include important cereals such as barley, wheat and oats. Comparison of the Brachypodium genome (accession Bd21) with those of the model dicot Arabidopsis thaliana and the tropical cereal rice (Oryza sativa) provides an opportunity to compare and contrast genetic pathways controlling important traits. We analysed the homologies of genes controlling the induction of flowering using pathways curated in Arabidopsis Reactome as a starting point. Pathways include those detecting and responding to the environmental cues of day length (photoperiod) and extended periods of low temperature (vernalization). Variation in these responses has been selected during cereal domestication, providing an interesting comparison with the wild genome of Brachypodium. Brachypodium Bd21 has well conserved homologues of circadian clock, photoperiod pathway and autonomous pathway genes defined in Arabidopsis and homologues of vernalization pathway genes defined in cereals with the exception of VRN2 which was absent. Bd21 also lacked a member of the CO family (CO3). In both cases flanking genes were conserved showing that these genes are deleted in at least this accession. Segmental duplication explains the presence of two CO-like genes in temperate cereals, of which one (Hd1) is retained in rice, and explains many differences in gene family structure between grasses and Arabidopsis. The conserved fine structure of duplications shows that they largely evolved to their present structure before the divergence of the rice and Brachypodium. Of four flowering-time genes found in rice but absent in Arabidopsis, two were found in Bd21 (Id1, OsMADS51) and two were absent (Ghd7, Ehd1). Overall, results suggest that an ancient core photoperiod pathway promoting flowering via the induction of FT has been modified by the recruitment of additional lineage specific pathways that promote or repress FT expression.

Project description:BACKGROUND: A complete assembled genome sequence of wheat is not yet available. Therefore, model plant systems for wheat are very valuable. Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium) is such a system. The WRKY family of transcription factors is one of the most important families of plant transcriptional regulators with members regulating important agronomic traits. Studies of WRKY transcription factors in Brachypodium and wheat therefore promise to lead to new strategies for wheat improvement. RESULTS: We have identified and manually curated the WRKY transcription factor family from Brachypodium using a pipeline designed to identify all potential WRKY genes. 86 WRKY transcription factors were found, a total higher than all other current databases. We therefore propose that our numbering system (BdWRKY1-BdWRKY86) becomes the standard nomenclature. In the JGI v1.0 assembly of Brachypodium with the MIPS/JGI v1.0 annotation, nine of the transcription factors have no gene model and eleven gene models are probably incorrectly predicted. In total, twenty WRKY transcription factors (23.3%) do not appear to have accurate gene models. To facilitate use of our data, we have produced The Database of Brachypodium distachyon WRKY Transcription Factors. Each WRKY transcription factor has a gene page that includes predicted protein domains from MEME analyses. These conserved protein domains reflect possible input and output domains in signaling. The database also contains a BLAST search function where a large dataset of WRKY transcription factors, published genes, and an extensive set of wheat ESTs can be searched. We also produced a phylogram containing the WRKY transcription factor families from Brachypodium, rice, Arabidopsis, soybean, and Physcomitrella patens, together with published WRKY transcription factors from wheat. This phylogenetic tree provides evidence for orthologues, co-orthologues, and paralogues of Brachypodium WRKY transcription factors. CONCLUSIONS: The description of the WRKY transcription factor family in Brachypodium that we report here provides a framework for functional genomics studies in an important model system. Our database is a resource for both Brachypodium and wheat studies and ultimately projects aimed at improving wheat through manipulation of WRKY transcription factors.

Dataset Information

Divergent roles of FT-like 9 in flowering transition under different day lengths in Brachypodium distachyon.

Publications

Divergent roles of FT-like 9 in flowering transition under different day lengths in Brachypodium distachyon.

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