Cloning and Expression Analysis of GbMFT1 Gene in Gossypium barbadense L．

Abstract

Angiosperm genes sharing a conserved phosphatidylethanolamine-binding(PEBP) domain have been shown to be involved in the control of flowering time.The family is divided into three subfamilies,FT-like,TFL1-like and MFT-like.Evolution analysis showed that MOTHER OF FT AND TFL1(MFT) is the ancestral form of all PEBP genes in plant;however the exact fuction of MFT is still unknown.One MFT-like homolog,designated GbMFT1,was isolated from Gossypium barbadense L.cv.Xinhai 14 using RT-PCR and RACE methods.The open reading frame of GbMFT1 is 528 bp in length,which encodes a putative protein of 175 amino acids.GbMFT1 gene has a PEBP conserved motif.In consistency with almost all MFT-like proteins,GbMFT1 has a conserved proline residue near the C-terminus.Phylogenetic analysis revealed that GbMFT1 has high sequence similarities with VvMFT and SP2G and they belong to the same clade.The result of qRT-PCR assay indicated that GbMFT1 expressed in different tissues of cotton,with a maximum expression in petal,and in different developmental stages of fibre,especially in two-day ovule and nine-day fibre.Semiquantitative RT-PCR assay indicated that GbMFT1 had a high level of transcription at the beginning of seed germination.Exogenous abscisic acid(ABA) of different concentrations resulted in no significant change in GbMFT1 expression in germinating seeds,indicating that the expression of this gene is not regulated by ABA.