Abstract
Key message
Two CO paralogs in Brassica napus were confirmed and shown distinct expression pattern and function in promoting flowering and allelic variation s within BnaCO.A10 were found closely associated with ecotype divergence.
Abstract
CONSTANS (CO) is a key gene that responds to photoperiod and in Arabidopsis can promote flowering under long-day (LD) conditions. Brassica napus L. is a major oil crop and close relative of Arabidopsis, and arose via allopolyploidization from the diploids B. rapa (A genome) and B. oleracea (C genome). In this study, we confirmed that B. napus has two CO genes located on the A10 (BnaCO.A10) and C9 (BnaCO.C9) chromosomes. Significant differences in level and temporal pattern of transcription, as well as in protein function, of these homoeologous may have resulted from sequence variation in the promoter as well as in the coding region. Apart from two insertions of 527 bp and 2002 bp in the promoter of BnaCO.C9 that function as transcriptional enhancers, this gene is otherwise highly conserved in both promoter and coding region. However, BnaCO.A10 was classified into two haplotypes and transgene analysis in Arabidopsis and backcross analysis in rapeseed indicated that the winter-type haplotype had a greater effect in promoting flowering than the spring type. We discuss the contribution of CO alleles to species evolution, and for eco-geographic radiation following crop domestication, alongside scope for managing this locus in future breeding.
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Data availability
Genomic sequences of BnaCO.A10 and BnaCO.C9 from Tapidor and BnaCO.A10 and BnaCO.C9 from Westar were deposited in NCBI, with accession number MN206139, MN206141, MN206140 and MN206142, respectively. The sequences of primer set in this study were listed in Table S5. Supplemental Information is available at Theoretical and Applied Genetics.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0101700), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662020ZKPY021), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD1000900) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31471531).
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This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0101700), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2662020ZKPY021), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD1000900) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31,471,531).
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JW, XG and GZ conceived and designed the experiments. QJ, SY, TG, GL, MW, HL, JL and JW performed the experiments. JW, XG analyzed the data, JW, GK, GZ, ZL and XG wrote the manuscript. QJ and SY contributed equally. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
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Jin, Q., Yin, S., Li, G. et al. Functional homoeologous alleles of CONSTANS contribute to seasonal crop type in rapeseed. Theor Appl Genet 134, 3287–3303 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-03896-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-021-03896-x