Putterill J, Robson F, Lee K, Simon R, Coupland G
John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Colney, England.
Cell. 1995 Mar 24;80(6):847-57. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(95)90288-0.
The vegetative and reproductive (flowering) phases of Arabidopsis development are clearly separated. The onset of flowering is promoted by long photoperiods, but the constans (co) mutant flowers later than wild type under these conditions. The CO gene was isolated, and two zinc fingers that show a similar spacing of cysteines, but little direct homology, to members of the GATA1 family were identified in the amino acid sequence. co mutations were shown to affect amino acids that are conserved in both fingers. Some transgenic plants containing extra copies of CO flowered earlier than wild type, suggesting that CO activity is limiting on flowering time. Double mutants were constructed containing co and mutations affecting gibberellic acid responses, meristem identity, or phytochrome function, and their phenotypes suggested a model for the role of CO in promoting flowering.
拟南芥发育的营养生长阶段和生殖（开花）阶段明显分开。长日照促进开花起始，但在这些条件下，恒常（co）突变体比野生型开花晚。CO基因被分离出来，在其氨基酸序列中鉴定出两个锌指结构，它们与GATA1家族成员的半胱氨酸间距相似，但直接同源性较低。co突变被证明会影响两个锌指结构中保守的氨基酸。一些含有额外CO拷贝的转基因植物比野生型开花早，这表明CO活性对开花时间具有限制作用。构建了包含co以及影响赤霉素反应、分生组织特性或光敏色素功能的突变的双突变体，它们的表型提示了一个关于CO促进开花作用的模型。
