Ectopic expression of a WRKY homolog from Glycine soja alters flowering time in Arabidopsis

PLoS One. 2013 Aug 26;8(8):e73295. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073295. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Flowering is a critical event in the life cycle of plants; the WRKY-type transcription factors are reported to be involved in many developmental processes sunch as trichome development and epicuticular wax loading, but whether they are involved in flowering time regulation is still unknown. Within this study, we provide clear evidence that GsWRKY20, a member of WRKY gene family from wild soybean, is involved in controlling plant flowering time. Expression of GsWRKY20 was abundant in the shoot tips and inflorescence meristems of wild soybean. Phenotypic analysis showed that GsWRKY20 over-expression lines flowered earlier than the wild-type plants under all conditions: long-day and short-day photoperiods, vernalization, or exogenous GA3 application, indicating that GsWRKY20 may mainly be involved in an autonomous flowering pathway. Further analyses by qRT-PCR and microarray suggests that GsWRKY20 accelerating plant flowering might primarily be through the regulation of flowering-related genes (i.e., FLC, FT, SOC1 and CO) and floral meristem identity genes (i.e., AP1, SEP3, AP3, PI and AG). Our results provide the evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of manipulating GsWRKY20 for altering plant flowering time.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Arabidopsis / genetics*
  • Arabidopsis / physiology*
  • Flowers*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant*
  • Genes, Plant*
  • Glycine max / genetics*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Plant Proteins / chemistry
  • Plant Proteins / genetics
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Sequence Homology, Amino Acid

Substances

  • Plant Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31201223, 31171578); the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (20102325120002); the Key Project of the Ministry of National Education (212049). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.