Abstract
In Arabidopsis, LKP protein family consists of three members, LKP1/ZTL, LKP2 and FKF1, and is known to be involved in the regulation of circadian clock, flowering time and hypocotyl elongation. These proteins contain three functional domains, LOV domain, F-box motif and kelch repeats. The mutation of FKF1 gene results in late flowering and decreased level of CO mRNA. Recent studies have shown that FKF1 is involved in the regulation of flowering time by degradation of CDF1 protein, a negative regulator of CO gene expression. Overexpression of LKP1/ZTL and LKP2 resulted in delayed flowering under LD condition, although both ztl and lkp2 plants flowered normally. LKP2 and CO proteins were shown to be co-localized in the nuclei, and an yeast two-hybrid analysis demonstrated that the F-box motif and the kelch repeats in LKP2 interacted with CO. Here, we report the flowering time of transgenic plants that overexpress LKP2 fused with GFP.
