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Promotion of flowering and reduction of a generation time in apple seedlings by ectopical expression of the Arabidopsis thaliana FT gene using the Apple latent spherical virus vector

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Abstract

Tree crops have a long juvenile period which is a serious constraint for genetic improvement and experimental research. For example, apple remains in a juvenile phase for more than five years after seed germination. Here, we report about induction of rapid flowering in apple seedlings using the Apple latent spherical virus (ALSV) vector expressing a FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene from Arabidopsis thaliana. Apple seedlings could be flowered at 1.5–2 months after inoculation to cotyledons of seeds just after germination with ALSV expressing the FT gene. A half of precocious flowers was normal in appearance with sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils. Pollen from a precocious flower successfully pollinated flowers of ‘Fuji’ apple from which fruits developed normally and next-generation seeds were produced. Our system using the ALSV vector promoted flowering time of apple seedlings within two months after germination and shortened the generation time from seed germination to next-generation seed maturation to within 7 months when pollen from precocious flowers was used for pollination.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Grant-in-Aids for Research and Development Projects for Application in Promoting New Policy of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and KAKENHI (no. 20380025).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Pathology Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, Ueda 3-18-8, Morioka, 020-8550, Japan

    Noriko Yamagishi, Shintaro Sasaki, Kousuke Yamagata & Nobuyuki Yoshikawa

  2. Horticulture Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, Ueda 3-18-8, Morioka, 020-8550, Japan

    Sadao Komori & Momoyo Nagase

  3. Department of Apple Research, National Institute of Fruit Tree Science, Shimokuriyagawa 92-24, Morioka, 020-0123, Japan

    Masato Wada

  4. National Institute of Fruit Tree Science, Fujimoto 2-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8605, Japan

    Toshiya Yamamoto

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  1. Noriko Yamagishi
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  2. Shintaro Sasaki
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  3. Kousuke Yamagata
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  4. Sadao Komori
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  8. Nobuyuki Yoshikawa
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Correspondence to Nobuyuki Yoshikawa.

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Yamagishi, N., Sasaki, S., Yamagata, K. et al. Promotion of flowering and reduction of a generation time in apple seedlings by ectopical expression of the Arabidopsis thaliana FT gene using the Apple latent spherical virus vector. Plant Mol Biol 75, 193–204 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-010-9718-0

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