Functional characterization of MADS box genes involved in the determination of oil palm flower structure

Abstract

In order to study the molecular regulation of flower development in the monoecious species oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), cDNAs of 12 MADS box genes from this plant belonging to seven distinct subfamilies were previously isolated and characterized. Here studies carried out on five of these genes, each likely to be involved in floral morphogenesis: EgSQUA1 (SQUAMOSA subfamily); EgAGL2-1 (AGL2 subfamily); EgGLO2 (GLOBOSA subfamily); EgDEF1 (DEFICIENS subfamily); and EgAG2 (AGAMOUS subfamily), are described. In order to determine where and when in the plant these genes are likely to function, their spatial and temporal patterns of expression were studied during the development of male and female inflorescences, either of normal phenotype or displaying a homeotic flowering abnormality known as mantled. In parallel, the phenotypic effects of ectopically expressing these genes in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants were analysed. The data suggest a broad conservation of floral homeotic gene functions between oil palm and previously described model species, although a few minor variations in the zones of activity of certain genes cannot be excluded. The data also indicate distinct molecular identities for the morphologically similar floral organs of whorls 1 and 2. They also reveal reduced expression of putative B, C/D, and E class genes in mantled flowers, which undergo a homeotic transformation comparable to B class mutants of model species.

Characterization of the Possible Roles for B Class MADS Box Genes in Regulation of Perianth Formation in Orchid

“…3). The expression in organs other than flowers has also been reported in some B class genes such as GDEF1 (G. hybrida), TGGLO (T. gesneriana), ZMM16 (Z. mays), and EgGLO2 (Elaeis guineensis) that showed a similar expression pattern to OMADS8/3 by expressing in both flower organs and leaves (Yu et al, 1999;Mü nster et al, 2001;Kanno et al, 2003;Adam et al, 2007). This revealed that in addition to regulating flower organ formation, B class genes such as OMADS3/8, GDEF1, TGGLO, ZMM16, and EgGLO2 are also possibly involved in the regulation of leaf development.…”

Regulatory Mechanisms Underlying Oil Palm Fruit Mesocarp Maturation, Ripening, and Functional Specialization in Lipid and Carotenoid Metabolism

“…There appears to have been a substantial amount of functional diversification in the SEP-like and AG-like subfamilies, given the number of new transcripts found compared with those observed previously in studies of the oil palm flower structure (Adam et al, , 2007a(Adam et al, , 2007b. This diversification appears to have arisen through the expansion of the expression of genes that either have retained a function in the flower or have specialized functions within the fruit.…”

Analysis of flowering gene in palm oil (Elaeis guineensis)

“…Where they used Spidey algorithm to predict the gene position with mRNA sequenced, using mRNA data with accession number AF411848.1 from the study by Adam et al (2007), and whole DNA sequence, using a genome region data with accession number NW_011550962.1 from the study of Singh et al (2013). According to PerlPrimer (application for designs primers, ORF and CpG island detection algorithms) analysis of globosa gene were separated into seven exons, between each exon are introns (Figure 2.).…”

“…The study about genes taking part in controlling and developing flowering organ had been conducted by Adam et al (2007), which showed that the flowering process was controlled by MADS-box gene. In their study, Adam et al used cDNA samples to characterize MADS-box gene of palm oil.…”