Crop improvement by synthetic strategy using anti-florigen genes

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K14829
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Science in genetics and breeding
• Research Institution: Yokohama City University
• Principal Investigator: Tsuji Hiroyuki 横浜市立大学, 木原生物学研究所, 准教授 (40437512)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: フロリゲン / アンチフロリゲン / イネ / 種子数

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Florigen and antiflorigen function in antagonistic manner for flowering and inflorescence development. Florigen promotes flowering and early termination of inflorescence branching that leads to the reduction of seed number, whereas anti-florigen have opposite phenotype. Overexpression of anti-florigen genes results in the increase in the number of seeds, whereas it causes delay in flowering which should be avoided in the breeding process. In this study we tried to overcome this problem by expressing anti-florigen genes under the control of the promoters that activated in the shoot apical meristem after the floral transition. We developed transgenic lines expressing synthetic anti-florigen genes under PAP2 promoter, and examined their phenotype. We found that several lines showed increase in the number of primary branches without delay in flowering. However total seed number was not increased in these lines, suggesting requirement for further improvement of our construct.

Free Research Field

植物分子遺伝学