Primers to amplify flowering locus T (FT) transcript in mango (Mangifera indica) and their potential use in other angiosperms.
Santos-Villalobos S. de los, Parra-Cota F. I., Folter S. de, Peña-Cabriales J. J.
Author Affiliation: Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados-IPN (CINVESTAV), Unidad Irapuato. Km. 9.6 Libramiento Norte, Carretera Irapuato-León, C.P. 36500, Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico.
Plant Omics 5 : 453-457
Abstract : Mango (Mangifera indica) is a commercially important fruit crop around the world. So far, Flowering Locus T (FT), a floral integrator gene, has not been identified in this plant as well as in other economically important angiosperms. Two pairs of primers to amplify fragments of FT transcripts from M. indica were designed using an alignment of forty-one amino acid sequences of this transcript belonging to fifteen angiosperm species. Designed primers, FTf1/FTr2 and FTf2/FTr2, amplified fragments of approximately 210 and 150 bp, respectively, which were sequenced by Sanger platform. Sequences obtained were analyzed and compared, using BLAST, with those of FT deposited in the NCBI GenBank database, FT transcripts of 207 bp (Accession No. JX316911) and 147 bp (Accession No. JX316912) from M. indica showed high identity with FT of Populus nigra (86% and 84%, respectively). In addition, FTf2/FTr2 was able to amplify 150 bp fragments from Duranta dombeyana (Accession No. JX316913), Gazania linearis (Accession No. JX316915), and Lantana camara (Accession No. JX316914), with significant identity to FT of Xanthium strumarium (82%), Helianthus annuus (91%), and Ficus carica (79%), respectively. Furthermore, phylogenetic relationship analysis showed that the fragment of 147 bp from M. indica FT transcript has more similarity to those belonging to the subclass Rosidae, while FT from D. dombeyana, G. linearis and L. camara are more related to the subclass Asteridae. Overall, these primers may be useful to amplify fragments of FT transcript from other angiosperm species for a variety of downstream applications, such as monitoring their expression profiles under certain conditions, isolation of FT full-length transcripts, etc. This will lead to propose more precise models and alternatives to control the flowering in plants of interest.