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B-class MADS-box genes in trioecious papaya: two paleoAP3 paralogs, CpTM6-1 and CpTM6-2, and a PI ortholog CpPI

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Abstract

In the ABC model of flower development, B function organ-identity genes act in the second and third whorls of the flower to control petal and stamen identity. The trioecious papaya has male, female, and hermaphrodite flowers and is an ideal system for testing the B-class gene expression patterns in trioecious plants. We cloned papaya B-class genes, CpTM6-1, CpTM6-2, and CpPI, using MADS box gene specific degenerate primers followed by cDNA library screening and sequencing of positive clones. While phylogenetic analyses show that CpPI is the ortholog of the Arabidopsis gene PI, the CpTM6-1 and CpTM6-2 loci are representatives of the paralogous TM6 lineage that contain paleoAP3 motifs unlike the euAP3 gene observed in Arabidopsis. These two paralogs appeared to have originated from a tandem duplication occurred approximately 13.4 million year ago (mya) (bootstrap range 13.36 ± 2.42). In-situ hybridization and RT-PCR showed that the papaya B-class genes were highly expressed in young flowers across all floral organ primordia. As the flower organs developed, all three B-class genes were highly expressed in petals of all three-sex types and in stamens of hermaphrodite and male flowers. CpTM6-1 expressed at low levels in sepals and carpels, whereas CpTM6-2 expressed at a low level in sepals and at a high level in leaves. Our results showed that B-class gene homologs could function as predicted by the ABC model in trioecous flowers but differential expressions of CpTM6-1, and CpTM6-2, and CpPI suggested the diversification of their functions after the duplication events.

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Abbreviations

AP3 :

APETALA3

BAC:

Bacterial artificial chromosome

DEF :

DEFICIENS

DIG:

Digoxigenin

GLO :

GLOBOSA

ML:

Maximum likelihood analyses

MP:

Maximum parsimony

mya:

Million year ago

NPRS:

Nonparametric rate smoothing

PI :

PISTILLATA

RACE:

Rapid amplification of cDNA ends

TM6 :

Tomato MADS-box gene 6

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Elena Kramer at Harvard University for providing the refined degenerate primer sequences and PCR programs for cloning CpTM6s and CpPI, and Dr. Elliot Meyerowitz at the California Institute of Technology for providing the Arabidopsis AP3 and PI cDNA clones. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers who helped us improve the manuscript. This project was supported by a USDA T-STAR grant through the University of Hawaii and a USDA-ARS Cooperative Agreement (CA 58-3020-8-134) with the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, Aiea, HI, 96701, USA

    Christine M. Ackerman, Qingyi Yu & Ray Ming

  2. Department of Botany, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Sangtae Kim

  3. Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Robert E. Paull

  4. USDA-ARS, Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, Aiea, HI, 96701, USA

    Paul H. Moore

  5. Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    Ray Ming

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  1. Christine M. Ackerman
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  2. Qingyi Yu
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  3. Sangtae Kim
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  4. Robert E. Paull
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  5. Paul H. Moore
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  6. Ray Ming
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Correspondence to Ray Ming.

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Christine M. Ackerman, Qingyi Yu contributed equally to this work.

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Ackerman, C.M., Yu, Q., Kim, S. et al. B-class MADS-box genes in trioecious papaya: two paleoAP3 paralogs, CpTM6-1 and CpTM6-2, and a PI ortholog CpPI . Planta 227, 741–753 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-007-0653-5

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