Abstract
In the self-pollinating flowers like Arabidopsis, pollination is achieved by access of the dehisced anthers to the stigma of a receptive gynoecium that occurs when rapid elongation of petal and filament bring about the coordinated opening of flowers. This coordinated maturation and elongation of floral organs is critically important for the successful pollination. We isolated deco1 mutant, which shows abnormalities in synchronized elongation of stamens and petals (i.e. hastened stamen elongation and insufficient petal elongation) at the flower opening. The high-throughput plant hormone analyses by LC-ESI-MS/MS revealed that only the level of endogenous JA was decreased in deco1 flowers, that resulted in the block of petal elongation. The DECO1 promoter-GUS analysis revealed that it was expressed specifically in stamen filaments of fully developed but unopened flower buds. These results suggested that DECO1 protein, which is predicted a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase, is involved in the biosynthesis or metabolism of JA in filaments, and that the resultant compound may be important for petal elongation.
