Abstract
While genetic information concerning floral development has been accumulated over the past decade, it seems still insufficient to make us control floral traits in various ornamental flowers. In this study, we analyzed functions of torenia class B genes, TfGLO and TfDEF, which are thought to play important roles in developments of petals and stamens.
TfGLO-overexpressing transgenic plants showed ectopic accumulation of anthocyanin pigments in sepals, while TfDEF-overexpressing plants showed no phenotypic exchange. TfGLO-repressed plants showed distinctive serrations in petal margins, and TfDEF-repressed plants showed partially-decolorized petals. We isolated putative downstream genes of the class B genes, TfXEG and TfCAB, according to a microarray analysis of Arabidopsis, and examined their expressions in the transgenic plants. Expression patterns of the TfXEG and TfCAB genes were similar between TfGLO and TfDEF plants, while the patterns were partly different from results reported in Arabidopsis. These results suggested that there is a functional divergence between TfGLO and TfDEF in floral development, and their functions are partly different from those in Arabidopsis.
