Abstract:

It has been confirmed that the wheat vernalization gene VRN3 is an orthologue of FT. In this study, special PCR primers were designed using the software ‘DNAMAN’ based on the sequences of TaFT (GenBank No. DQ890162). The PCR products amplified from 13 cultivars with different flowering dates were sequenced from two directions. Sequence alignment was conducted using the software BioEdit. The results of DNA sequence polymorphism showed that the translational FT protein from five cultivars had mutations. The TaFT gene was mapped to chromosome 7BS using a set of nulli-tetrasomic lines and ditelosomic line 7BL of Chinese Spring. According to the vernalization characteristics and the flowering time we deduced that for the winter cultivars, the normal FT protein may accelerate flowering, the FT protein mutation will delay flowering; for the spring cultivars, the dominant vernalization allele genes may substitute the TaFT gene’s function, and FT protein variation will not obviously influence flowering dates.

Key words: Triticum aestivum L., TaFT, Sequence polymorphism, Genetic control of flowering dates, Vernalization gene