Multi-petal cyclamen flowers produced by AGAMOUS chimeric repressor expression

Sci Rep. 2013:3:2641. doi: 10.1038/srep02641.

Abstract

Cyclamen persicum (cyclamen) is a commercially valuable, winter-blooming perennial plant. We cloned two cyclamen orthologues of AGAMOUS (AG), CpAG1 and CpAG2, which are mainly expressed in the stamen and carpel, respectively. Cyclamen flowers have 5 petals, but expression of a chimeric repressor of CpAG1 (CpAG1-SRDX) caused stamens to convert into petals, resulting in a flower with 10 petals. By contrast, CpAG2-SRDX only caused incomplete formation of stamens and carpels. Expression in Arabidopsis thaliana showed similar effects on flower organ specification. Simultaneous expression of CpAG1-SRDX and CpAG2-SRDX in cyclamen induced rose-like, multi-petal flowers, a potentially valuable trait in commercial ornamental varieties. Expression of CpAG2-SRDX in a cyclamen mutant lacking expression of CpAG1 more effectively produced multi-petal flowers. Here, we controlled the number of petals in cyclamen by simple genetic engineering with a chimeric repressor. This strategy may be applicable useful for other ornamental plants with two distinct AG orthologues.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arabidopsis / genetics
  • Cyclamen / genetics*
  • Flowers / genetics*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
  • MADS Domain Proteins / genetics*
  • Phenotype
  • Plant Proteins / genetics*
  • Plants, Genetically Modified
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins / genetics*
  • Repressor Proteins / genetics*
  • Transcriptome

Substances

  • MADS Domain Proteins
  • Plant Proteins
  • Recombinant Fusion Proteins
  • Repressor Proteins