Plant Diversity ›› 2021, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (02): 173-179.DOI: 10.1016/j.pld.2020.11.002

• Articles • Previous Articles    

Expansion and expression diversity of FAR1/FRS-like genes provides insights into flowering time regulation in roses

Mi-Cai Zhonga,b, Xiao-Dong Jianga,b, Wei-Hua Cuia,b, Jin-Yong Hua   

  1. a CAS Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
    b University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2020-08-07 Revised:2020-10-27 Online:2021-04-25 Published:2021-05-20
  • Contact: Jin-Yong Hu
  • Supported by:
    This work was funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to J-Y H (XDB31000000); the CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program to J-Y H (292015312D11035) and Yunnan Recruitment Program of Experts in Science to J-Y H. We acknowledge the support from Dan Wang and Yi-Bo Sun. We appreciate Shubin Li, Shulan Chen, Hongyuan Yu and Yuanlin Lv for the help with rose cultivation. This work is partially facilitated by the Germplasm Bank of Wild Species of China and Kunming Botanical Garden, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Abstract: Roses are important horticultural plants with enormous diversity in flowers and flowering behavior. However, molecular regulation of flowering time variation in roses remains poorly characterized. Here, we report an expansion of the FAR1/FRS-like genes that correlates well with the switch to prostrate-toerect growth of shoots upon flowering in Rosa wichuraiana ‘Basye's Thornless’ (BT). With the availability of the high-quality chromosome-level genome assembly for BT that we developed recently, we identified 91 RwFAR1/FRS-like genes, a significant expansion in contrast to 52 in Rosa chinensis ‘Old Blush’ (OB), a founder genotype in modern rose domestication. Rose FAR1/FRS-like proteins feature distinct variation in protein domain structures. The dispersed expansion of RwFAR1/FRS-like genes occurred specifically in clade I and Ⅱ and is significantly associated with transposon insertion in BT. Most of the RwFAR1/FRS-like genes showed relatively higher expression level than their corresponding orthologs in OB. FAR1/FRS-like genes regulate light-signaling processes, shade avoidance, and flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana. Therefore, the expansion and duplication of RwFAR1/FRS-like genes, followed by diversification in gene expression, might offer a novel leverage point for further understanding the molecular regulation of the variation in shoot-growth behavior and flowering time in roses.

Key words: Rose, FAR1/FRS-Like genes, Gene family expansion, Flowering time, Shoot growth behavior