Characterization of mango Flowering Locus T (FT) and Terminal Flower 1 (TFL1) genes

S.N. Vyavahare, B. Krishna, S.S. Joshi, R.S. Chaudhari, V.R. Subramaniam, P.V. Sane
Mango is one of the most important tropical fruit crops, and many of its cultivars are known to be alternate bearers. While molecular genetic information is available on flowering-related genes in many horticultural crops, information on this aspect is not available for mango. In this report, we present our studies on the characterisation of three FT-like genes, MiFT1, MiFT2 and MiFT3, and two TFL1-like genes, MiTFL1 and MiTFL1a, from mango cultivar 'Alphonso'. Results revealed that genomic MiFT1 and MiFT2 are 2540 and 1509 bp long, while cDNA showed them to be 543 and 519 bp, respectively. Both MiFT1 and MiFT2 have three introns and four exons; however, interestingly, MiFT3 has no introns. MiFT2 expression was not detectable at any stage, suggesting that this gene may be non-functional. Mango FT sequences have most similarity to FT-like genes of the citrus group. MiTFL1 and MiTFL1a also possess three introns and four exons, as are present in most TFL1-like genes. On genomic DNA, MiTFL1 is 1055 bp long, while its cDNA is 528 bp. MiTFL1a is 1179 bp on genomic DNA, while its cDNA is 519 bp. Expression analysis of these genes suggests that MiFT1, MiFT3 and both the TFLs are key regulators of flowering in mango.
Vyavahare, S.N., Krishna, B., Joshi, S.S., Chaudhari, R.S., Subramaniam, V.R. and Sane, P.V. (2017). Characterization of mango Flowering Locus T (FT) and Terminal Flower 1 (TFL1) genes. Acta Hortic. 1183, 113-124
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1183.16
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1183.16
mango, mango flowering, flowering locus T, terminal flower, MiFT, MiTFL
English

Acta Horticulturae