National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China.
J Integr Plant Biol. 2013 Mar;55(3):221-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1744-7909.2012.01169.x. Epub 2013 Jan 9.
CYCLOIDEA (CYC)-like TCP genes play key roles in dorsoventral differentiation of zygomorphic flowers in Papilionoideae legumes. In this study, we analyzed the kew mutants whose flowers lost lateral identity, and investigated the diverse functions of three LjCYC genes during zygomorphic flower development in the model legume Lotus japonicus. We showed that kew1 and kew3 are allelic mutants of LjCYC3, a CYC-like TCP gene. Through transgenic experiments, it was shown that LjCYC1 possesses dorsal activity similar to LjCYC2, and that LjCYC3 alone is sufficient to confer lateral activity, and an epistatic effect between dorsal and lateral activities was identified. Sequence analysis revealed a striking alteration at the 3' end of the LjCYC3 open reading frame (ORF) in comparison with those of LjCYC1 and LjCYC2 ORFs. Furthermore, it was found that LjCYC proteins could interact with each other and possess different activities by means of a transcriptional activity assay. Our data demonstrate that the sequence variation and the subsequent alteration of protein property play important roles in the functional diversity of different LjCYC genes in controlling zygomorphic flower development in Lotus japonicus.
环化酶 (CYC)-样 TCP 基因在豆科蝶形花亚科植物的背腹分化中起着关键作用。在这项研究中，我们分析了花朵失去侧方特征的 kew 突变体，并研究了三个 LjCYC 基因在模式豆科植物百脉根花发育过程中的不同功能。我们表明，kew1 和 kew3 是 LjCYC3 的等位突变体，LjCYC3 是一个 CYC 样 TCP 基因。通过转基因实验，表明 LjCYC1 具有类似于 LjCYC2 的背侧活性，并且 LjCYC3 本身足以赋予侧方活性，并鉴定了背侧和侧方活性之间的上位效应。序列分析表明，与 LjCYC1 和 LjCYC2 ORF 相比，LjCYC3 的开放阅读框（ORF）的 3'端存在显著改变。此外，通过转录活性测定发现 LjCYC 蛋白可以相互作用并具有不同的活性。我们的数据表明，序列变异和随后的蛋白性质改变在控制百脉根花发育的不同 LjCYC 基因的功能多样性中起着重要作用。
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