AUTHOR=Jiang Lan , Fan Tingting , Wang Lihu , Zhang Lin , Xu Jun 

TITLE=Divergence of flowering-related genes to control flowering in five Euphorbiaceae genomes

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.1015114

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2022.1015114

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>Reproductive growth and vegetative growth are a pair of main contradictions in the process of plant growth. Flowering, as part of reproductive growth, is a key switch in the life cycle of higher plants, which affects the yield and economic benefits of plants to a certain extent. The Euphorbiaceae species, including castor bean (<italic>Ricinus communis</italic>), physic nut (<italic>Jatropha curcas</italic>), tung tree (<italic>Vernicia fordii</italic>), cassava (<italic>Manihot esculenta</italic>), and rubber tree (<italic>Hevea brasiliensis</italic>), have important economic values because they are raw materials for the production of biodiesel, rubber, etc. The flowering mechanisms are still excluded in the Euphorbiaceae species. The flowering-related genes of <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic> (Arabidopsis) were used as a reference to determine the orthologs of these genes in Euphorbiaceae genomes. The result showed that 146, 144, 114, 114, and 149 of 207 A<italic>. thaliana</italic> genes were respectively matched to <italic>R. communis</italic>, <italic>V. fordii</italic>, <italic>J. curcas</italic>, <italic>H. brasiliensis</italic>, and <italic>M. esculenta</italic>. These identified genes were clustered into seven pathways including gibberellins, floral meristem identity (FMI), vernalization, photoperiod, floral pathway integrators (FPIs), and autonomous pathways. Then, some key numbers of flowering-related genes are widely conserved in the Euphorbiaceae genomes including but not limited to FPI genes <italic>LFY</italic>, <italic>SOC1</italic>, <italic>FT</italic>, and FMI genes <italic>AG</italic>, <italic>CAL</italic>, and <italic>FUL</italic>. However, some genes, including <italic>FRI</italic>, <italic>FLC</italic>, and <italic>GO</italic>, were missing in several or all five Euphorbiaceae species. In this study, we proposed the putative mechanisms of flowering-related genes to control flowering and provided new candidate flowering genes for using marker-assisted breeding to improve variety quality.</p>