Abstract
Very few flower organ identity genes have been characterized in Chinese narcissus (Narcissus tazetta var. chinensis), which has petaloid sepals. Here, we report the cloning of two full-length B-class genes, namely NAP3L3 and NAP3L4, that are orthologs of the DEFICIENS lineage. Both genes are highly expressed in the second whorl of the perianth and in the stamens. NAP3L4 is also expressed strongly in the ovule. The functions of these two genes were further analyzed using transgenic plants. Ectopic expression of either gene in Arabidopsis gave no obvious floral organ transformation phenotypes. In yeast two-hybrid assays, NAP3L3 and NAP3L4 failed to homodimerize and interacted weakly with each other. The data suggest that these two genes might not be involved in the formation of petaloid sepals. Isolation and functional analysis of other B-class paralogs should be conducted to fully understand petaloid tepal development in Chinese narcissus.
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Abbreviations
- DEF :
-
DEFICIENS
- AP3 :
-
APETALA3
- GLO :
-
GLOBOSA
- PI :
-
PISTILLATA
- TM6 :
-
TOMATO MADS BOX GENE6
- NAP3L :
-
Narcissus AP3-like
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Shanghai Natural Science Program on Key Basic Research Project (grant 09JC1405100) and the Project of Science and Technology Support Xingjiang (grant 200840102-39). We are grateful to Dr. Sheila McCormick (Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, UC-Berkeley) and Dr. Weihua Tang (Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, SIBS, CAS) for critically reading the manuscript.
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Supplementary Fig. 1
Phenotype of NAP3L3 and NAP3L4 overexpressing lines of the T0 generation. a, b Seedling of NAP3L3 over-expressing lines. c Seedling of NAP3L4 overexpressing line. d Seedling of Col. e Flowers of wild-type (Col) and NAP3L overexpressing lines. Bars a–d 3 mm, e 0.5 mm. (DOC 226 kb)
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Li, XF., Xu, J., Yang, R. et al. Analysis of B-Class Genes NAP3L3 and NAP3L4 in Narcissus tazetta var. chinensis . Plant Mol Biol Rep 31, 255–263 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-012-0493-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-012-0493-8