biologia plantarum

Biologia plantarum 2012, 56:585-589 | DOI: 10.1007/s10535-012-0112-4

Cloning and characterization of paleoAP3-like MADS-box gene in London plane tree

Z. Li¹, G. Liu¹, J. Zhang¹, S. Lu¹, S. Yi¹, M. Bao^1,*

¹ Key Laboratory of Horticultural Plant Biology, Ministry of Education; College of Horticulture and Forestry Sciences, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, P.R. China

We isolated PaAP3, a homolog of the class B MADS-box transcription factor gene APETALA3 (AP3), from the monoecious plant London plane tree (Platanus acerifolia Willd.). PaAP3 encodes a protein that shares good levels of identity with class B genes from Arabidopsis thaliana (35 and 51 % identity with PISTILLATA (PI) and AP3, respectively), and also with class B genes of other woody species (59 % identity with PTD from Populus trichocarpa and 66 % with TraAP3 from Trochodendron aralioides). Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction showed that PaAP3 was expressed in both the female and male flowers of P. acerifolia, but almost no signal was detected in the vegetative tissues or mature embryos. The PaAP3 expression in male flowers showed a relationship with developmental stage. There was a small transient increase during differentiation of the flower primordia in June, but maximal levels occurred during December when flower development appeared arrested. Increased PaAP3 expression was also detected in March of the following year, corresponding to meiotic divisions of the microspore mother cells, but this was lost by April when the pollen was mature.

Keywords: APETALA3; female and male flowers; Platanus acerifolia; RACE; RT-PCR; transcription factors

Subjects: APETALA3; female and male flowers; RACE; transcription factors; PCR; MADS-box gene; phylogenetic tree; nucleotide sequence

Species: Platanus acerifolia; Trochodendron aralioides; Arabidopsis thaliana; Populus trichocarpa

Received: March 27, 2011; Accepted: June 17, 2011; Published: September 1, 2012Show citation