Functional Analysis of a Pistillata -Like Gene Ccpi Involved in Floral Organs Specification in Citrus
Abstract PISTILLATA ( PI ), as a member of MADS-box transcription factor, plays an important role in petal and stamen specification in Arabidopsis . However, little is known about PI-like gene in citrus. To understand the molecular mechanism of PI during the developmental process of citrus flower, CcPI was isolated from Citrus Clemantina . Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis revealed that CcPI had relatively high similarity with PI-like homologue and was classified in the core dicotyledonous group. The temporal and spatial expression analyses showed that CcPI was specifically expressed in petal and stamen of citrus flower, which was consistent with PI in Arabidopsis . Protein interaction revealed that CcPI could form heterodimer with AP3-like proteins. Furthermore, ectopic overexpression of CcPI in Arabidopsis resulted in transformation of sepals into petal-like structure, as observed in other plants overexpressing a functional PI-like homologue. Additionally, promoter fragments of PI were also cloned in the representative 21 citrus varieties. Interestingly, four types of PI promoters were discovered in these citrus varieties, resulting from two stable insert/deletion fragments (Locus1 and Locus2). The homo/hetero-zygosity of PI promoter alleles in each variety was strongly related to the evolutionary origin of citrus. Four PI promoters activity analysis indicated that Locus1 presence inhibited PI transcriptional activity and Locus2 presence promoted PI transcriptional activity. These findings suggested that CcPI determines petal and stamen development during the evolutionary process of citrus and PI promoter alleles discovered are valuable for citrus breeding practices
Year of publication: |
[2022]
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Authors: | Hou, Xiaojin ; Ye, Lixia ; Ai, Xiaoyan ; Hu, Chungen ; Cheng, Zhongping ; Zhang, Jinzhi |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
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