Cloning and characterization of a flowering time gene from <italic>Thellungiella halophila</italic>

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title> <italic>Thellungiella halophila (T. halophila)</italic> (salt cress) is a close relative of <italic>Arabidopsis</italic> and a model plant for salt tolerance research. However, the nature of its later flowering causes some difficulties in genetic analysis. The <italic>FRIGIDA (FRT)</italic> gene plays a key role in the <italic>Arabidopsis</italic> vernalization flowering pathway, whose homolog in <italic>T. halophila</italic> may also be a key factor in controlling flowering time. In order to study the molecular mechanism of vernalization responses in <italic>T. halophila</italic>, a full length cDNA named <italic>ThFRI (Thellungiella halophila FRIGIDA)</italic> was isolated from the young seedlings of <italic>T. halophila</italic> by RT-PCR and RACE. The <italic>ThFRI cDNA</italic> was 2017 bp in length and contained an open reading frame encoding a putative protein of 605 ami no acids. The <italic>ThFRI</italic> showed significant homology to <italic>AtFRI</italic> (74.5% at the nucleotide level and 63.9% at the ami no acid level). To study its function, <italic>ThFRI</italic> cDNA was transformed into <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic>, driven by CaMV 35S promoter. Transgenic plants expressing <italic>ThFRI exhibited</italic> late-flowering phenotype, which suggests that <italic>ThFRI</italic> is the funtional FRI homolog in <italic>T. halophila</italic>. The cloning and funtional characterization of the <italic>FRI</italic> homolog of <italic>T. halophila</italic> will faciliate further study of flowering time control in <italic>T. halophila</italic>. <b>FullText for HTML: </b><a target="_blank" class="col_4A90E2" href="https://doi.org/10.1093/abbs/40.8.747">https://doi.org/10.1093/abbs/40.8.747</a>