Abstract
Rice is a short-day (SD) plant and promotes flowering by the expression of Hd3a in SD. FT-L1 and FT-L3 are highly homologous to Hd3a.
To examine the expression patterns of Hd3a -like genes, we investigated their mRNA levels every 10 days until flowering. FT-L1 was expressed constitutively, and Hd3a and FT-L3 were highly expressed at 30 days before flowering in SD. We analyzed the function of Hd3a -like genes by RNAi. In FT-L3 RNAi plants flowering time was similar to that of the wild type (WT). However Hd3a RNAi plants flowered 30 days later than WT and interestingly FT-L1 and FT-L3 were highly expressed at 30 days before flowering. These results indicate that FT-L1 or FT-L3 may replace Hd3a to promote flowering in SD in the absence of Hd3a.
