Advanced research on CO genes in higher plants | 高等植物CO基因研究进展

Chinese. 开花是植物由营养生长向生殖生长转变的重要时程。光周期和温度在这一过程中起主要作用。在拟南芥和水稻中,CONSTANS（CO）基因位于生物钟的输出途径,是生物钟和开花时间基因之间监测日照长度的重要元件,它可以整合光信号和生物钟信号,节律性地激活FLOWERINGLOCUST（FT）的表达,从而诱导开花。本文作者在追踪国内外对该基因的研究中发现,目前研究者已经从30余个物种中克隆到CO同源基因并对其序列特征、表达模式和功能特性进行了研究。CO基因编码的蛋白均包含两个保守的结构域：靠近氨基端的B-box结构域即锌指结构域和靠近羧基端的CCT结构域。CO基因的表达受昼夜节律钟调控。不同物种中该基因拷贝数不同,CO基因不同拷贝之间的功能存在差异。系统进化分析表明,该基因在双子叶植物和单子叶植物,以及不同科、属的植物中也存在分化。国内外这些关于CO基因家族的研究成果为进一步研究该基因功能和进化关系,并通过转基因调节植物开花期提供了有价值的参考资料。[著者文摘]

English. Flowering is an important process for plants to transfer from vegetative to reproductive development.Photoperiod and temperature play vital roles in controlling flowering time.In Arabidopsis and rice,CONSTANS（CO） lies in the output pathway of Circadian Clock and it is one of the important components between Circadian Clock and flowering time genes to measure the day-length.It can integrate the signals of light and Circadian Clock to activate FLOWERING LOCUS T（FT） to induce flowering.The authors of this paper traced the research on this gene in recent years,and found that CO homologous had been cloned from over thirty species,And their sequence characters,expression patterns and functions had been analyzed.The protein encoded by CO open reading frame contains two reserved domain,the first is a zinc fingerregion nearthe amino terminus that resembles B-box,and the second is a region near the carboxy terminus termed by CCT domain.The expression of CO gene is regulated by Circadian Clock.There are different copy numbers in different species.The functions of different CO copies are varied.The analysis of the phylogenetic relationship indicates that there are obvious differentiation between angiosperm and gymnosperm,dicotyledon and monocotyledon.The research in this gene family provide meaningful information for further studies on the functions and the evolutionary relationship of CO genes.It＇s also helpful forgenetic engineering.[著者文摘]