delays flowering time through affecting expression of flowering-related genes in .

is an important vegetable and condiment crop widely grown in Asia, and the yield and quality of its product organs are affected by flowering time. AGAMOUS-LIKE18-1 (AGL18-1) belongs to a member of MADS-domain transcription factors, which play vital roles in flowering time control, but the biological role of in () has not been thoroughly revealed in flowering regulatory network. In this study, expressed highly in inflorescence and flower, but slightly in root, stem and leaf. The sense and anti-sense transgenic lines of were generated and showed that functioned as a flowering inhibitor and depressed growth of lateral branching. During the vegetative phase, induced another flowering repressor () but inhibited the flowering signal integrator of () in . Whereas, during the flower developmental phase, both and () were down-regulated by . By contrast, was promoted by , while () was independent of . Additionally, () was highly induced by . These results will provide valuable information for clarifying the molecular mechanism of in mediating flowering time.