Overexpression of , an -like gene of bamboo, causes early flowering and abnormal floral organs in and rice.

Bamboo is a nontimber woody plant featuring a long vegetative stage and uncertain flowering time. Therefore, the genes belonging to flowering repressors might be essential in regulating the transition from the vegetative to reproductive stage in bamboo. The ( ) gene plays a pivotal role in floral transition and development. However, little is known about the bamboo homologues. In this study, is isolated by analysis of the . transcriptome database. Phylogenetic analysis shows that is closely related to (rice homolog). is ubiquitously expressed in various tissues, predominantly in vegetative tissues. To investigate the function of , is overexpressed in and rice under the influence of the 35S promoter. Overexpression of in causes early flowering and produces abnormal petals and sepals. Quantitative real-time PCR reveals that overexpression in produces an early flowering phenotype by downregulating and upregulating and produces abnormal floral organs by upregulating , and expressions. Simultaneously, overexpression of in rice alters the expressions of flowering-related genes such as , , and and promotes flowering under field conditions. In addition, PvSVP1 may be a nuclear protein which interacts with PvVRN1 and PvMADS56 on the yeast two-hybrid and BiFC systems. Our study suggests that may play a vital role in flowering time and development by interacting with PvVRN1 and PvMADS56 in the nucleus. Furthermore, this study paves the way toward understanding the complex flowering process of bamboo.