Flowering is a critical transitional stage during plant growth and development, and is closely related to seed production and crop yield. The flowering transition is regulated by complex genetic networks, whereas many flowering-related genes generate multiple transcripts through alternative splicing to regulate flowering time. This paper summarizes the molecular mechanisms of alternative splicing in regulating plant flowering from several perspectives, future research directions are also envisioned.
Alternative Splicing/genetics* ; Arabidopsis/metabolism* ; Arabidopsis Proteins/genetics* ; Flowers/genetics*

Photoperiod plays an important role in transformation from vegetative growth to reproductive growth in plants. CONSTANS (CO), as a unique gene in the photoperiod pathway, responds to changes of day length to initiate flowering in the plant. In this study, the expression level of FaCONSTANS (FaCO) gene under long-day, short-day, continuous light and continuous darkness conditions was analyzed by real-time quantitative PCR. We constructed the over-expression vector p1300-FaCO and infected into Arabidopsis thaliana by Agrobacterium-mediated method. We constructed the silencing vector p1300-FaCO-RNAi and infected into Festuca arundinacea by Agrobacterium-mediated method. The expression of FaCO gene was regulated by photoperiod. The over-expression of FaCO promoted flowering in wild type of Arabidopsis thaliana under long day condition and rescued the late flowering phenotype in co-2 mutant of Arabidopsis thaliana. Silencing FaCO gene in Festuca arundinacea by RNAi showed late-flowering phenotype or always kept in the vegetative growth stage. Our understanding the function of FaCO in flowering regulation will help further understand biological function of this gene in Festuca arundinacea.
Arabidopsis/metabolism* ; Arabidopsis Proteins/genetics* ; Festuca/metabolism* ; Flowers/genetics* ; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ; Photoperiod

Lysine acetylation is one of the major post-translational modifications and plays critical roles in regulating gene expression and protein function. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are responsible for the removal of acetyl groups from the lysines of both histone and non-histone proteins. The RPD3 family is the most widely studied HDACs. This article summarizes the regulatory mechanisms of Arabidopsis RPD3 family in several growth and development processes, which provide a reference for studying the mechanisms of RPD3 family members in regulating plant development. Moreover, this review may provide ideas and clues for exploring the functions of other members of HDACs family.
Arabidopsis/metabolism* ; Histone Deacetylases/metabolism* ; Histones ; Plant Development/genetics*

YABBY proteins are important transcription factors that regulate morphogenesis and organ development in plants. In order to study the YABBY of strawberry, bioinformatic technique were used to identify the YABBY gene families in Fragaria vesca (diploid) and Fragaria×ananassa (octoploid), and then analyze the sequence characters, phylogeny and collinearity of the family members. The RNA-seq data and the quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) technique were used to assay the expression patterns of the family members. A green fluorescent protein (GFP) was fused with FvYABBYs and transiently expressed in tobacco leaf cells for the subcellular localization. As the results, six FvYABBY genes and 26 FxaYABBY genes were identified from F. vesca and F.×ananassa, respectively. The FvYABBY genes were grouped into five clades, and five family members were orthologous with AtYABBY genes of Arabidopsis. In F. vesca, all of the FvYABBYs were basically not expressed not expressed in root and receptacle, while FvYABBY1, FvYABBY2, FvYABBY5 and FvYABBY6 were highly expressed in leaf, shoot, flower and achene. In F.×ananassa, FxaYABBY1, FxaYABBY2, FxaYABBY5 and FxaYABBY6 were expressed in achene, and all FxaYABBY were poorly or not expressed in receptacle. Additionally, under the abiotic stresses of low temperature, high salt and drought, the expression of FvYABBY1, FvYABBY3, FvYABBY4 and FvYABBY6 were down-regulated, FvYABBY5 was up-regulated, and FvYABBY2 was up-regulated and then down-regulated. In tobacco leaf cells, the subcellular localization of FvYABBY proteins were in the nucleus. These results provides a foundation for the functional researches of YABBY gene in strawberry.
Fragaria/genetics* ; Arabidopsis ; Biological Assay ; Cold Temperature ; Computational Biology

In plants, UDP-L-rhamnose is one of the major components of cell wall skeleton. Rhamnose synthase plays a key role in rhamnose synthesis which converts UDP-D-glucose into UDP-L-rhamnose in plants. In this study, we isolated the 1058 bp promoter region of the rhamnose synthase gene AtRHM1 from Arabidopsis genome by PCR, and created a series of deletions of AtRHM1 promoter ranging from -931 bp to +127 bp. The full length of the promoter and its deletion derivatives fused with GUS reporter gene were introduced into wild-type Arabidopsis by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation respectively. The GUS staining and GUS enzymatic activity assay showed that the expression of AtRHM1 is induced at transcriptional level by glucose and the regulatory elements involved in the glucose response are located in the region of -931 bp - -752 bp which contains three G-box motifs.
Arabidopsis ; genetics ; Arabidopsis Proteins ; genetics ; Glucosyltransferases ; genetics ; Plants, Genetically Modified ; genetics ; Promoter Regions, Genetic ; Uridine Diphosphate Glucose ; genetics ; metabolism ; Uridine Diphosphate Sugars ; genetics ; metabolism

Stomatal density is important for crop yield. In this paper, we studied the epidermal pattern factors (EPFs) related to stomatal development. Prokaryotic expression vectors were constructed to obtain EPFs. Then the relationship between EPFs and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) was established. First, AtEPF1, AtEPF2 and AtEPFL9 were cloned and constructed to pET28a vectors. Then recombinant plasmids pET28a-AtEPF1, pET28a-AtEPF2 and pET28a-AtEPFL9 were digested and sequenced, showing successful construction. Finally, they were transformed into E. coli BL21(DE3) separately and induced to express by isopropyl β-D-galactoside (IPTG). The optimized expression conditions including IPTG concentration (0.5, 0.3 and 0.05 mmol/L), temperature (28 °C, 28 °C and 16 °C) and induction time (16 h, 16 h and 20 h) were obtained. The bands of purified proteins were about 18 kDa, 19 kDa and 14.5 kDa, respectively. In order to identify their function, the purified AtEPF2 and AtEPFL9 were presented to Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings. Interestingly, the H2S production rate decreased or increased compared with the control, showing significant differences. That is, EPFs affected the production of endogenous H2S in plants. These results provide a foundation for further study of the relationship between H2S and EPFs on stomatal development, but also a possible way to increase the yield or enhance the stress resistance.
Arabidopsis ; genetics ; metabolism ; Arabidopsis Proteins ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; metabolism ; Escherichia coli ; genetics ; Genetic Vectors ; genetics ; Hydrogen Sulfide ; metabolism ; Plasmids ; genetics ; Seedlings ; metabolism

Arabidopsis ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Arabidopsis Proteins ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Crystallography, X-Ray ; Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Protein Conformation ; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism

Autophagy is a conserved pathway for the bulk degradation of cytoplasmic components in all eukaryotes. This process plays a critical role in the adaptation of plants to drastic changing environmental stresses such as starvation, oxidative stress, drought, salt, and pathogen invasion. This paper summarizes the current knowledge about the mechanism and roles of plant autophagy in various plant stress responses.
Adaptation, Physiological ; Arabidopsis ; genetics ; physiology ; Arabidopsis Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Autophagy ; genetics ; Disease Resistance ; Plant Diseases ; immunology ; Saccharomyces cerevisiae ; genetics ; Sequence Homology ; Stress, Physiological

Vitamin E (Tocopherols) is lipid-soluble antioxidants and essential for human health. Gamma-tocopherol methyltransferase (delta-TMT), one of the key enzymes in tocopherol biosynthetic pathway in plants, converts delta,sigma-tocopherols into alpha,beta-tocopherols. In this study, we isolated the 1552 bp promoter of Arabidopsis TMT gene. The promoter was fused with GUS reporter gene and this expression cassette was introduced into wild Arabidopsis thaliana by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. GUS staining shows that GUS gene is expressed in leaves, stems and flowers, with the highest expression in young leaves, stamens and stem apices, while not observable in roots, seeds and siliques. The data indicate that gamma-TMT gene promoter is likely to be expressed preferentially in some of the tissues of Arabidopsis.
Arabidopsis ; genetics ; Base Sequence ; Genes, Reporter ; Immunohistochemistry ; Methyltransferases ; genetics ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Promoter Regions, Genetic ; genetics

Plant trichomes are special structures that originate from epidermal outgrowths. Trichomes play an important role in plant defense against pests and diseases, and possess economic and medicinal values. Study on molecular mechanism of plant trichomes will contribute to the molecular design breeding and genetic improvement of crops. In recent years, the regulation mechanism of trichome development has been basically clarified in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, while great progresses are also found in other plant species. In this review, we focus on the developmental regulation of trichome formation from gene and phytohormones levels in Arabidopsis and cotton (with unicellular trichomes), as well as in tomato and Artemisia annua (with multicellular trichomes). The research progress associated with trichomes is also introduced in other typical monocotyledons and dicotyledons. Finally, the research and application of plant trichomes are prospected.
Arabidopsis/genetics* ; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant ; Gossypium/genetics* ; Lycopersicon esculentum ; Plant Growth Regulators/metabolism* ; Trichomes/genetics*