チン ドンポー

Lilies (species and cultivars of the genus Lilium) are economically important ornamental plants because of their large and attractive flowers. The establishment of an efficient transformation system of lilies is desired for their genetic improvement with respect to ornamental and marketable qualities such as novel flower color and plant form as well as benefits for commercial cultivation such as virus resistance and environmental stress tolerance. In Lilium, genetic transformation has been achieved by electroporation, and biolistic and Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. However, the transformation efficiency varies according to the methods, species or cultivars. In the initial trials, only the biolistic method was used for Lilium genetic transformation, but eventually, Agrobacterium-mediated method has been incorporated as a successful approach for the genetic transformation of lilies in addition to a large number of monocots with better understanding of the process of monocot transformation, and availability of superior constructs, strains and vectors. This article summarizes the reported gene-transfer methods for Lilium, with an emphasis on the recent progress in introducing new traits into lily species in our laboratory.

In Arabidopsis, flowering is delayed under red light and induced under far red light and blue light. Studies suggest that the florigen, FLOWERING LOCUS T, is involved in the control of light quality-associated flowering in Arabidopsis. In petunia, similar to Arabidopsis, flowering is delayed under red light and induced under blue light, however its mechanism still remains unknown. Here we isolated a gene which has 75% amino acid sequence similarity with Arabidopsis FT (AtFT), named PehFT. By overexpressing PehFT in Arbidopsis and petunia, we tested its ability to induce flowering. Also, by conducting expression analyses of PehFT under different light quality treatments, we tested its response to light quality. We concluded that PehFT, like AtFT, is a gene which responds to photoperiod and light quality, but unlike AtFT, is not the main gene controlling the light quality-associated flowering.