Paper Summary: Functional alleles of the flowering time regulator FRIGIDA in the Brassica oleracea genome
Tue, May 19, 2015Abbreviations
- FRIGIDA - FRI
- FLOWERING LOCUS C - FLC
- FE SUPEROXIDE DISMUTASE 2 - FSD2
Introduction
- Vernalization requirement determines the life history strategy which plants adopt.
- Flowering time influences the fitness of plants by affecting when plants set seed.
- Flowering time also affects a number of agromonic traits by influencing the growth pattern of plants.
- FRI gene expression represses flowering by promoting expression of FLC.
Notes
- 2 FRI genes identified in Brassica oleracea: BolC.FRI.a and BolC.FRI.b.
- Sequence analysis of Arabidopsis thaliana FRI and its orthologues in other species has identified a conserved region of 37 amino acids in the N-terminal region of the protein.
- Both BolC.FRI.a and BolC.FRI.b contain this conserved region, providing evidence for them being FRI orthologues.
- BolC.FRI.a maps to Brassica oleracea chromosome C3 and BolC.FRI.b maps to chromosome C9.
- The two regions where BolC.FRI.a and BolC.FRI.b map are syntenic with Arabidopsis thaliana chromosome 5, while FRI is located at the top of Arabidopsis thaliana chromosome 4.
- The orthologue of FRI in Arabidopsis lyrata is found in a region of the genome which is homologous to Arabidopsis thaliana chromosome 5.
- Within this region is an annotated gene model (AT5G51090), which shows homology to FRI and is likely to be a pseudogene, and FSD2 (AT5G51100).
- Propose that a recombination event relocated FRI in Arabidopsis thaliana from chromosome 5 to chromosome 4.
- This event left a non-functional remnant of FRI in a genomic position on chromosome 5 which is syntenic with FRI in other Brassicaceae.
- Across 55 varieties of Brassica oleracea, 2 common alleles were identified for BolC.FRI.a.
- Both common alleles of BolC.FRI.a were able to complement Arabidopsis thaliana plants which were mutant in FRI, indicating that both are functional.