ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF LEAFY-LIKE GENE FROM LOQUAT

According to the conservative region of the floral meristem identity gene-LEAFY (LFY) homologue, a pair of degenerate primers were designed and used to isolate the ejLFY, a homologue of LFY gene from Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica L. cv. ‘Zaozhong No.6’) with RT-PCR and PCR. The complete ORF region sequence of ejLFY was 1227 bp in length encoding 408 amino acids. The full-length DNA sequence of ejLFY was 2602 bp with 2 introns whose lengths were 464 bp and 911 bp, respectively. The deduced amino acid sequence of ejLFY was 74% identical to Arabidopsis LFY protein. The transcripts of ejLFY were detected in the floral shoot apexes at different phases. The quantities of transcripts increase as the floral apexes grew up until the flowers formed. It was not detected in the well-developed flowers, immature fruit, vegetative apexes and leaves, but it was detected in young seedling cultured in vitro.