Open AccessThe Cloning and Functional Characterization of Peach CONSTANS and FLOWERING LOCUS T Homologous Genes PpCO and PpFT
Author(s) -
Xiang Zhang,
Lijun An,
Thi Hung Nguyen,
Huike Liang,
Rui Wang,
Xiayan Liu,
Tianhong Li,
Yafei Qi,
Fei Yu
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0124108
Subject(s) - arabidopsis , biology , prunus , gene , mutant , complementary dna , genetics , locus (genetics) , cloning (programming) , positional cloning , homologous chromosome , botany , computer science , programming language
Flowering is an essential stage of plant growth and development. The successful transition to flowering not only ensures the completion of plant life cycles, it also serves as the basis for the production of economically important seeds and fruits. CO NSTANS ( CO ) and F LOWERING LOCUS T ( FT ) are two genes playing critical roles in flowering time control in Arabidopsis. Through homology-based cloning and rapid-amplifications of cDNA ends (RACE), we obtained full-lengths cDNA sequences of P runus p ersica CO ( PpCO ) and P runus p ersica FT ( PpFT ) from peach ( Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) and investigated their functions in flowering time regulation. PpCO and PpFT showed high homologies to Arabidopsis CO and FT at DNA, mRNA and protein levels. We showed that PpCO and PpFT were nucleus-localized and both showed transcriptional activation activities in yeast cells, consistent with their potential roles as transcription activators. Moreover, we established that the over-expression of PpCO could restore the late flowering phenotype of the Arabidopsis co-2 mutant, and the late flowering defect of the Arabidopsis ft-1 mutant can be rescued by the over-expression of PpFT , suggesting functional conservations of CO and FT genes in peach and Arabidopsis. Our results suggest that PpCO and PpFT are homologous genes of CO and FT in peach and they may function in regulating plant flowering time.