A Wheat TaTOE1-B1 Transcript TaTOE1-B1-3 Can Delay the Flowering Time of Transgenic Arabidopsis.

Tianqi Song,Songjie Yang,Xiaoke Zhang,Jianfei Zhou,Mingfei Zhang,Hongwei Zhou,Ming Yu,Shuangxing Zhang,Yang Yu,Jishan Xiang,Jie Cheng

doi:10.3390/ijms222312645

Abstract

Flowering time is one of the most important agronomic traits in wheat production. A proper flowering time might contribute to the reduction or avoidance of biotic and abiotic stresses, adjust plant architecture, and affect the yield and quality of grain. In this study, TaTOE1-B1 in wheat produced three transcripts (TaTOE1-B1-1, TaTOE1-B1-2, and TaTOE1-B1-3) by alternative splicing. Compared to the longest transcript, TaTOE1-B1-1, TaTOE1-B1-3 has a deletion in the sixth exon (1219–1264 bp). Under long-day conditions, the heterologous overexpression of the TaTOE1-B1-3 gene delayed flowering, prolonged the vegetative growth time, and enlarged the vegetative body of Arabidopsis, but that of TaTOE1-B1-1 did not. As typical AP2 family members, TaTOE1-B1-1 and TaTOE1-B1-3 are mainly located in the nucleus and have transcriptional activation activities; the transcriptional activation region of TaTOE1-B1-3 is located in the C-terminal. In TaTOE1-B1-3 overexpression lines, the expression of flowering-related AtFT and AtSOC1 genes is significantly downregulated. In addition, this study confirms the protein–protein interaction between TaTOE1-B1-3 and TaPIFI, which may play an important role in flowering inhibition. These results provide a theoretical basis for the precise regulation of wheat flowering time.

Highlights

During the long course of evolution, plants have developed powerful adaptive mechanisms to cope with a variety of environments [1,2]
Compared to TaTOE1-B1-1, TaTOEB1-2 and TaTOE1-B1-3 have a deletion of 45 bp (1219–1264 bp) in the coding sequence (CDS)
TaTOE1-B1-1 encodes a protein of 512 amino acids (Figure S2), with a molecular weight (MW) of about 55.7 kDa and a theoretical isoelectric point (PI) of 6.47; TaTOE1-B1-3 encodes a protein of 497 amino acids, with a MW of about 54.0 kDa and a theoretical PI of 6.71, and TaTOE-B1-2 encodes a protein of 434 amino acids, with a MW of about 47.5 kDa and a theoretical PI of 6.33

Summary

Introduction

During the long course of evolution, plants have developed powerful adaptive mechanisms to cope with a variety of environments [1,2]. Flowering is an important stage in the process of plant life generation. When plants grow to a certain stage, under the combined action of various internal and external factors, a series of metabolic pathways are activated to initiate the process of flower development in order to carry out reproductive growth [3]. An appropriate flowering time is an important guarantee for seed plants to complete life generation and maintain species reproduction. In long-term crop cultivation, domestication, and agricultural production practice, flowering time is among the agronomic traits we focus on

Methods

Results

Conclusion