Abstract
FT homologs are crucial for the flowering process, playing a vital role as ‘florigens’ in plants. In this study, we isolated and characterized an FT homolog, FaFT1, from cultivated strawberry. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed a 531-bp open reading frame in FaFT1, encoding a putative protein with typical DPDxP and GxHR motifs belonging to the PEBP family proteins. For vegetative tissues or organs, qRT-PCR revealed that FaFT1 was primarily expressed in leaves. Notably high expression levels were detected in flowers and fruits, including the pith and cortex of the receptacle. Analysis of potential putative cis-acting regulatory elements (CREs) in this gene promoter indicated that many of them are associated with plant hormonal responses and abiotic stress responses. Expression detection confirmed that GA3 treatment enhanced the expression of FaFT1. When ectopically expressed in Arabidopsis, FaFT1 could promote the flowering process under SD conditions. These results suggested the possible role of FaFT1 in the regulation of reproductive development in cultivated strawberry.
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Acknowledgements
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31872073), the Liaoning Key R&D Program (2020JH2/10200032) and the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (No. 2014027015, 20180550431). Our sincere thanks go to Dr. Junhui Zhou of UMD for grammar checking. We also thank the editor and the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.
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YL designed the research. WC, HL, DZ, YY, CL and AY performed the experiments. YL, WC, HL and ZZ wrote the manuscript.
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344_2021_10409_MOESM1_ESM.tif
Supplementary file1 Fruit without seed cross-section showing pith (center) and cortex (flanking) tissues; the red line indicates the boundary of two tissues (TIF 91 kb) (Color figure online)
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Supplementary file2 Vector construction. FaFT1 was inserted into the plasmid pCAMBIA1304. 35S promoter: the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 35S promoter (JPG 43 kb)
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Supplementary file3 PCR detection of FaFT1 in Arabidopsis T3 generation lines. WT: nontransgenic Arabidopsis as a negative control, 1–9: PCR detection results for T3 generation plantlets (TIF 51 kb)
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Supplementary file4 Sequence alignment of five reported FaFTs. Black and blue colors indicate higher and lower amino acid residue conservation, respectively. Red and blue boxes indicate the same protein sequences with different accession numbers (TIF 102 kb) (Color figure online)
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Chen, W., Li, H., Zou, D. et al. Expression Profile of FaFT1 and Its Ectopic Expression in Arabidopsis Demonstrate Its Function in the Reproductive Development of Fragaria × ananassa. J Plant Growth Regul 41, 1687–1698 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-021-10409-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00344-021-10409-z