Effect of Light Quality and Vernalization on Late-Flowering Mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract

We have analyzed the response to vernalization and light quality of six classes of late-flowering mutants (fb, fca, fe, fg, ft, and fy) previously isolated following mutagenesis of the early Landsberg race of Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. When grown in continuous fluorescent illumination, four mutants (fca, fe, ft, and fy) and the Landsberg wild type exhibited a reduction in both flowering time and leaf number following 6 weeks of vernalization. A significant decrease in flowering time was also observed for all the mutants and the wild type when constant fluorescent illumination was supplemented with irradiation enriched in the red and far red regions of the spectrum. In the most extreme case, the late-flowering phenotype of the fca mutant was completely suppressed by vernalization, suggesting that this mutation has a direct effect on flowering. The fe and fy mutants also showed a more pronounced response than wild type to both vernalization and incandescent supplementation. The ft mutant showed a similar response to that of the wild type. The fb and fg mutants were substantially less sensitive to these treatments. These results are interpreted in the context of a multifactorial pathway for induction of flowering, in which the various mutations affect different steps of the pathway.