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Published on June 6, 2008; 10.1104/pp.107.115261

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Received December 21, 2007
Accepted May 31, 2008

Involvement of the MADS-box gene ZMM4 in floral induction and inflorescence development in Zea mays

Olga N. Danilveskaya *, Xin Meng , David A. Selinger , Stephane Deschamps , Pedro Hermon , Gordon Vansant , Rajeev Gupta , Evgueni V. Ananiev , and Michael G. Muszynski

Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., A DuPont business, 7250 NW 62nd Ave., Johnston, Iowa; DuPont Crop Genetics Research, Experimental Station, Building E353, Wilmington, DE 19880-0353, USA; Althea Technologies, 11040 Roselle Street, San Diego, CA 92121

* Corresponding author; email: olga.danilevskaya{at}pioneer.com.

The switch from vegetative to reproductive growth is marked by the termination of vegetative development and the adoption of floral identity by the shoot apical meristem (SAM). This process is called the floral transition. To elucidate the molecular determinants involved in this process, we performed genome-wide RNA expression profiling on Zea mays (maize) shoot apices at vegetative and early reproductive stages using Massively Parallel Signature SequencingTM (MPSSTM) technology. Profiling revealed significant up-regulation of two Z. mays MADS-box (ZMM) genes, ZMM4 and ZMM15, after the floral transition. ZMM4 and ZMM15 map to duplicated regions on chromosomes 1 and 5 and are linked to neighboring MADS-box genes ZMM24 and ZMM31, respectively. This gene order is syntenic with the vernalization1 (VRN1) locus responsible for floral induction in winter wheat (Triticum monococcum) and similar loci in other cereals. Analyses of temporal and spatial expression patterns indicated that the duplicated pairs ZMM4-ZMM24 and ZMM15-ZMM31 are coordinately activated after the floral transition in early developing inflorescences. More detailed analyses revealed ZMM4 expression initiates in leaf primordia of vegetative shoot apices and later increases within elongating meristems acquiring inflorescence identity. Expression analysis in late flowering mutants positioned all four genes downstream of the floral activators indeterminate1 (id1) and delayed flowering1 (dlf1). Over expression of ZMM4 leads to early flowering in transgenic maize and suppresses the late flowering phenotype of both the id1 and dlf1 mutations. Our results suggest ZMM4 may play roles in both floral induction and inflorescence development.






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