Cloning and sequence analysis of a flo/lfy homologue isolated from cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis)

Meristem identity gene expression during curd proliferation and flower initiation in Brassica oleracea

The regulation of reproductive development in cauliflower (Brassica oleracea var. botrytis DC) and broccoli (B. oleracea L. var. italica Plenck) is unusual in that most enlargement occurs while development is arrested at a distinct stage. Cauliflower and broccoli curds are composed of inflorescence meristems and flower buds, respectively. To determine whether this arrest is maintained by altered expression of the genes that specify these steps in Arabidopsis, the expression of each copy of their homologues (MADS-box genes BoAP1-a, BoAP1-c, BoCAL, BoFUL-a, BoFUL-b, BoFUL-c, and BoFUL-d; and non-MADS-box genes BoLFY, AP2, UFO, and BoTFL1) and the cauliflower curd-specific genes CCE1 and BoREM1 were measured simultaneously in heads that were arrested at different developmental stages by varying temperature, but had a common genotype. Transcript abundance of BoFUL paralogues and BoLFY was highest at the cauliflower stage of arrest, consistent with these genes initiating inflorescence meristems. The expression of other genes was the same regardless of the developmental stage of arrest. The expected models can therefore be excluded, wherein maintenance of arrest at the inflorescence meristem is a consequence of suppression of BoCAL, BoAP1-a, or BoLFY, or failure to suppress BoTFL1. Floral primordia and floral buds were normal in boap1-a boap1-c bocal triple mutants; therefore, other meristem identity genes can specify floral initiation (A-function) in B. oleracea. BoTFL1, a strong repressor of flowering in Arabidopsis, did not suppress the formation of the floral primordium in B. oleracea. Initiation of floral primordia and enlargement of floral buds in broccoli and cauliflower is not controlled solely by homologues of the genes that do so in Arabidopsis.

Molecular evolution of the transcription factor LEAFY in Brassicaceae

LEAFY (LFY) is a DNA-binding transcription factor that regulates floral meristem identity. LFY is unusual among angiosperm developmental regulators because it is not part of an extended gene family. Recent expression studies and transgenic experiments have suggested that changes at the LFY locus might have played a role in the evolution of rosette flowering, a modified plant architecture that has evolved at least three times in Brassicaceae. Here we examined the sequences of LFY genes from 16 species of Brassicaceae to evaluate whether gene duplication and/or the shift to rosette flowering correlate with changes in the molecular evolution of LFY. We found evidence of gene duplication in four taxa, but phylogenetic analysis suggested that duplicate genes have generally not persisted through multiple speciation events. This result can be explained if LFY is prone to be lost by drift due to a low probability of subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization. Despite great heterogeneity in dN/dS ratios, duplicate genes show a significant tendency to have elevated dN/dS ratios. Rosette-flowering lineages also show elevated dN/dS ratios and two of the rosette-flowering taxa, Idahoa and Leavenworthia, have some radical amino acid substitutions that are candidates for having played a causal role in the evolution of rosette flowering.

Isolation of a FLORICAULA/LEAFY putative orthologue from Chenopodium rubrum and its expression during photoperiodic flower induction

The short day plant (SDP) Chenopodium rubrum L. (ecotype 374) has been a model plant for physiological studies on photoperiodic flower initiation for many years. Using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) we identified a C. rubrum putative orthologue of the FLORICAULA/LEAFY genes from Antirrhinum majus and Arabidopsis thaliana, referred to as CrFL. Kinetics of the expression of CrFL in the apical part of C. rubrum during flower induction was followed using semi-quantitative RT-PCR. Expression of CrFL in vegetative apices was relatively high and started to decrease after 6 h of darkness (critical photoperiod). It reached its minimum between the 9th and the 12th hour of the 12-h inductive dark span, stayed at low levels for the next 6 h and increased again after the flower induction was completed. Our results indicate that expression of CrFL is regulated by photoperiod and that it is important both in the vegetative state and during flower development.

Development of amplified consensus genetic markers (ACGM) in Brassica napus from Arabidopsis thaliana sequences of known biological function

A method for the development of consensus genetic markers between species of the same taxonomic family is described in this paper. It is based on the conservation of the peptide sequences and on the potential polymorphism within non-coding sequences. Six loci sequenced from Arabidopsis thaliana, AG, LFY3, AP3, FAD7, FAD3, and ADH, were analysed for one ecotype of A. thaliana, four lines of Brassica napus, and one line for each parental species, Brassica oleracea and Brassica rapa. Positive amplifications with the degenerate primers showed one band for A. thaliana, two to four bands in rapeseed, and one to two bands in the parental species. Direct sequencing of the PCR products confirms their peptide similarity with the "mother" sequence. By comparison of intron sequences, the correspondence between each rapeseed gene and its homologue in one of the parental species can be determined without ambiguity. Another important result is the presence of a polymorphism inside these fragments between the rapeseed lines. This variability could generally be detected by differences of electrophoretic migration on long non-denaturing polyacrylamide gels. This method enables a quick and easy shuttle between A. thaliana and Brassica species without cloning.Key words: consensus genetics markers, PCR specific, Brassica, Arabidopsis, targeted markers, DSCP.

UNIFOLIATA regulates leaf and flower morphogenesis in pea

BACKGROUND

The vegetative phenotype of the pea mutant unifoliata (uni) is a simplification of the wild-type compound leaf to a single leaflet. Mutant uni plants are also self-sterile and the flowers resemble known floral meristem and organ identity mutants. In Antirrhinum and Arabidopsis, mutations in the floral meristem identity gene FLORICAULA/LEAFY (FLO/LFY) affect flower development alone, whereas the tobacco FLO/LFY homologue, NFL, is expressed in vegetative tissues, suggesting that NFL specifies determinacy in the progenitor cells for both flowers and leaves. In this paper, we characterised the pea homologue of FLO/LFY.

RESULTS

The pea cDNA homologue of FLO/LFY, PEAFLO, mapped to the uni locus in recombinant-inbred mapping populations and markers based on PEAFLO cosegregated with uni in segregating sibling populations. The characterisation of two spontaneous uni mutant alleles, one containing a deletion and the other a point mutation in the PEAFLO coding sequences, predicted that PEAFLO corresponds to UNI and that the mutant vegetative phenotype was conferred by the defective PEAFLO gene.

CONCLUSIONS

The uni mutant demonstrates that there are shared regulatory processes in the morphogenesis of leaves and flowers and that floral meristem identity genes have an extended role in plant development. Pleiotropic regulatory genes such as UNI support the hypothesis that leaves and flowers derive from a common ancestral sporophyll-like structure. The regulation of indeterminancy during leaf and flower morphogenesis by UNI may reflect a primitive function for the gene in the pre-angiosperm era.

The regulation of flowering in Arabidopsis thaliana: meristems, morphogenesis, and mutants

In the last decade, the study of mutants defective in floral development has contributed significantly to our understanding of floral evocation and morphogenesis. Genes in Arabidopsis thaliana and Antirrhinum majus that play key roles in (i) the transition from the vegetative to reproductive phase, (ii) the activation of floral development in specific shoots, and (iii) the unique arrangement of floral organs have been identified genetically and in many cases cloned. Many of the genes appear to encode transcription factors that act to select specific developmental programs of division and differentiation for groups of primordial cells. Other genes may be involved in detecting environmental conditions and transducing the signal to the developing meristems. Key questions remaining include how the regulatory proteins are produced in specific temporal and spatial patterns, interact with each other and initiate specific morphological programs. Although current research on floral morphogenesis has been limited to only a few species there is growing evidence that the basic processes are common to all flowering plants.Thus the information and tools currently being generated should be useful for studying a wide variety of flowering species. It seems reasonable to predict that within the next decade, we should have a fairly complete understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying floral morphogenesis and its evolution among the angiosperms. Key words: Arabidopsis thaliana, floral morphogenesis, molecular genetics.