IDENTIFICATION OF FLOWERING RELATED CANDIDATE GENES FROM FRAGARIA VESCA USING EST SEQUENCING

We are using wild strawberry (Fragaria vesca L.) as a diploid model plant to investigate genetic regulation of flowering. F. vesca is a facultative short-day (SD) plant that initiates flowers only in SD at high temperature, or daylength independently at low temperature. In Europe, everbearing (EB) forms have been identified in F. vesca. Using both daylength response types, our aim is to explore the genetic mechanisms involved in regulation of flowering in order to enhance the potential of strawberry cultivation and breeding. We have identified flowering related candidate genes in a SD genotype and EB F. vesca ‘Baron Solemacher’ seedlings using EST sequencing. Subtracted cDNA libraries were prepared from long day grown apical bud samples of SD and EB genotypes with the aim to enrich either putative flowering repressing or activating genes, respectively. The preliminary annotation of the sequenced ESTs show that we were able to identify several candidate genes based on homology with the Arabidopsis thaliana flowering pathway genes.