Abstract
BackgroundTERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1) is a member of phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) family, which plays an important role in the determination of floral meristem identity and regulates flowering time in higher plants.ResultsFive BnaTFL1 gene copies were identified in the genome of Brassica napus. The phylogenetic analysis indicated that all five BnaTFL1 gene copies were clustered with their corresponding homologous copies in the ancestral species, B. rapa and B. oleracea. The expression of the BnaTFL1s were confined to flower buds, flowers, seeds, siliques and stem tissues and displayed distinct expression profiles. Knockout mutants of BnaC03.TFL1 generated by CRISPR/Cas9 exhibited early flowering phenotype, while the knockout mutants of the other gene copies had similar flowering time as the wild type. Furthermore, knock-out mutants of individual BnaTFL1 gene copy displayed altered plant architecture. The plant height, branch initiation height, branch number, silique number, number of seeds per silique and number of siliques on the main inflorescence were significantly reduced in the BnaTFL1 mutants.ConclusionsOur results indicated that BnaC03.TFL1 negatively regulates flowering time in B. napus. BnaC03.TFL1 together with the other BnaTFL1 paralogues are essential for controlling the plant architecture.
Highlights
TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1) is a member of phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) family, which plays an important role in the determination of floral meristem identity and regulates flowering time in higher plants
Isolation and identification of TFL1 genes in B. napus To retrieve TFL1 genes from the genomes of B. napus, B. rapa and B. oleracea, the amino acid sequence of Arabidopsis TFL1 was used as a query to search the B. napus as well as the B. rapa and B. oleracea databases
The results indicated that the loss-offunction mutants of BnaC03.TFL1 exhibited early flowering and the loss-of-function mutants of the other gene copies did not affect the flowering time, suggesting that BnaC03.TFL1 play an important role in determining the floral transition, while the other paralogues may have obtained new functions or function redundantly in the determination of floral transition
Summary
TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1) is a member of phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) family, which plays an important role in the determination of floral meristem identity and regulates flowering time in higher plants. Plant needs to achieve a certain stage of developmental competence to respond to environmental factors such as day length (photoperiod), winter temperature (vernalization) and water stress [1]. Endogenous signals such as phytohormones, notably gibberellins, influence the vegetative to floral transition [2, 3]. FT is a flowering activator which promotes flowering [19,20,21,22], while TFL1 is a flowering inhibitor and controls the identity of shoot meristem during the plant life span [17, 19, 23, 24]
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