[ BjuWRKY71-1 accelerates flowering by regulating the expression of ].

(mustard) is a vegetable crop of , which is widely planted in China. The yield and quality of stem mustard are greatly influenced by the transition from vegetative growth to reproductive growth, i.e., flowering. The WRKY transcription factor family is ubiquitous in higher plants, and its members are involved in the regulation of many growth and development processes, including biological/abiotic stress responses and flowering regulation. WRKY71 is an important member of the WRKY family. However, its function and mechanism in mustard have not been reported. In this study, the gene was cloned from . . Bioinformatics analysis and phylogenetic tree analysis showed that the protein encoded by has a conserved WRKY domain, belonging to class Ⅱ WRKY protein, which is closely related to BraWRKY71-1 in . The expression abundance of in leaves and flowers was significantly higher than that in roots and stems, and the expression level increased gradually along with plant development. The result of subcellular localization showed that BjuWRKY71-1 protein was located in nucleus. The flowering time of overexpressing plants was significantly earlier than that of the wild type. Yeast two-hybrid assay and dual-luciferase reporter assay showed that BjuWRKY71-1 interacted with the promoter of the flowering integrator and promoted the expression of its downstream genes. In conclusion, BjuWRKY71-1 protein can directly target to promote plant flowering. This discovery may facilitate further clarifying the molecular mechanism of in flowering time control, and creating new germplasm with bolting and flowering tolerance in mustard.