JXB Advance Access originally published online on February 3, 2009
Journal of Experimental Botany 2009 60(4):1299-1308; doi:10.1093/jxb/erp010
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This paper is available online free of all access charges (see http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/open_access.html for further details)
RESEARCH PAPER |
A naturally occurring splicing site mutation in the Brassica rapa FLC1 gene is associated with variation in flowering time
1Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
2Institute of Horticulture, Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou 450002, China
3Laboratory of Plant Breeding, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 1, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: wangxw{at}mail.caas.net.cn
FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC), encoding a MADS-domain transcription factor in Arabidopsis, is a repressor of flowering involved in the vernalization pathway. This provides a good reference for Brassica species. Genomes of Brassica species contain several FLC homologues and several of these colocalize with flowering-time QTL. Here the analysis of sequence variation of BrFLC1 in Brassica rapa and its association with the flowering-time phenotype is reported. The analysis revealed that a G
A polymorphism at the 5’ splice site in intron 6 of BrFLC1 is associated with flowering phenotype. Three BrFLC1 alleles with alternative splicing patterns, including two with different parts of intron 6 retained and one with the entire exon 6 excluded from the transcript, were identified in addition to alleles with normal splicing. It was inferred that aberrant splicing of the pre-mRNA leads to loss-of-function of BrFLC1. A CAPS marker was developed for this locus to distinguish Pi6+1(G) and Pi6+1(A). The polymorphism detected with this marker was significantly associated with flowering time in a collection of 121 B. rapa accessions and in a segregating Chinese cabbage doubled-haploid population. These findings suggest that a naturally occurring splicing mutation in the BrFLC1 gene contributes greatly to flowering-time variation in B. rapa.
Key words: BrFLC1, flowering time, splicing pattern, splicing site mutation
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Received 7 October 2008; Revised 22 December 2008 Accepted 7 January 2009
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