Abstract
Recently, the molecular mechanism of photoperiodic flowering pathway of rice is just now uncovering. Under short day condition, induction of flowering requires the gene expression of OsGI, Hd1 , Ehd1 and Hd3a.
But this knowledge is study result of some representative cultivars. Cultivated rice, which is widely distributed in the world, shows a lot of diversity among the same species. Therefore this study focused on the natural variation of photoperiodic flowering pathway in rice.
To investigate natural variation in rice, we investigated the expression level of flowering time genes and flowering time of the core collection. The results showed that strong correlation was observed between the levels of Hd3a expression and the flowering time. The same analysis using representative cultivars also suggests that variation of flowering time genes causes diversity of flowering time. The relationship between the diversity in flowering time and the function of these genes will be discussed.
