Abstract
It has been known that anthocyanins, which provide orange, red and blue colorization, are most common pigments in flowers such as carnation and petunia. The loss of CHI or DFR activity results in accumulation of chalcone or flavonol, giving rize to yellow or white flower colors. We have found that a yellow flower color is caused by the insertion of transposable elements, dTdic1s, into CHI and DFR genes in carnation, resulting to the accumulation of chalcone 2'-glucoside. We could succeed to isolate a cDNA for the chalcone 2'-glucosyltransferase (CHGT) gene from yellow petals of carnation. Differential expression of CHGT and DFR genes during the petal development might be thought to determine the amounts of chalcone and anthocyanin in the petals, providing for orange color.
