Plant Physiology Preview
Published on October 20, 2006; 10.1104/pp.106.085571
OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE
Received June 30, 2006
Accepted October 12, 2006
FRIGIDA LIKE 2 (FRL2) Is a Functional Allele in Landsberg erecta and Compensates for a Nonsense Allele of FRL1
Michael R. Schläppi *
Department of Biological Sciences, Marquette University, 530 N. 15th Street, Milwaukee, WI 53233
* Corresponding author; email: michael.schlappi{at}marquette.edu.
The Landsberg erecta (Ler) accession of Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) has a weak allele of the floral inhibitor FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC). FLC-Ler is weakly upregulated by the active Sf2 allele of FRIGIDA (FRI-Sf2), resulting in a moderately late-flowering phenotype. By contrast, the Columbia (Col) allele of FLC is strongly upregulated by FRI-Sf2, resulting in a very late-flowering phenotype. In Col, the FRI-related gene FRIGIDA LIKE 1 (FRL1) is required for FRI-mediated up-regulation of FLC. It is shown here that in Ler, the FRL1-related gene FRIGIDA LIKE 2 (FRL2), but not FRL1, is required for FRI-mediated upregulation of FLC. FRL1-Ler is shown to be a nonsense allele of FRL1 due to a naturally occurring premature stop codon in the middle of the conceptual protein sequence, suggesting that FRL1-Ler is nonfunctional. Compared to FRL2-Col, FRL2-Ler has two amino acid changes in the conceptual protein sequence. Plants homozygous for FRI-Sf2, FLC-Ler, FRL1-Ler, and FRL2-Col have no detectable FLC expression, resulting in an extremely early-flowering phenotype. Transformation of a genomic fragment of FRL2-Ler, but not of FRL2-Col, into a recombinant inbred line derived from these plants restores both FRI-mediated upregulation of FLC expression and a late-flowering phenotype, indicating that FRL2-Ler is the functional allele of FRL2. Taken together, these results suggest that in the two different Arabidopsis accessions Col and Ler either FRL1 or FRL2 , but not both, is functional and required for FRI-mediated up-regulation of FLC.
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