Abstract
We previously reported that the treatment with 5-azacytidine, a DNA demethylating reagent, induced flowering of Perilla frutescens under long-day condition (LD) and hypomethylation occurred in rDNA intergenic spacer region. These suggest the involvement of epigenetics in photoperiodic flowering. If it was the case, the demethylated genes may be remethylated and silenced in the next generation. Indeed, progeny of the 5-azacytidine-treated plants did not flower under LD and the rDNA intergenic spacer region had been remethylated. These results suggest the existence of DNA-remethylating system which controls the epigenetic state of flowering-related genes. Thus, it is possible that the flowering-related genes of P. frutescnens are demethylated in short-day condition (SD). We used AFLP technique to compare DNA of the cloned plants grown under LD or SD, and detected the SD-specific bands. This indicates that the level of DNA methylation changed under SD. Based on this result, we are cloning the SD-spacific genes.
