Figure 2

Overexpression of Medicago FTa1 rescues the late flowering phenotype of amiR-FT plants. AmiR-FT Arabidopsis transgenic plants were transformed with a 35S::FTa1 gene expression construct. a) Graph showing average total leaf number at flowering of T1 plants (n = 19), two independent T3 homozygous transgenic lines with the 35S::FTa1 construct and control plants (n = 11-16). The flowering time of transformant and control Arabidopsis plants in long day (LD) or short day (SD) conditions was measured by scoring the total number of leaves (rosette + cauline) at flowering, unless otherwise specified. The data is presented as mean +/-SE. Nineteen out of 22 of the 35S::FTa1 T1 transgenic plants flowered earlier than wild-type Columbia (Col) plants; the mean flowering time of these early flowering plants is shown. In the SD experiments, the control Col and amiR-FT plants had not yet flowered by 63 days after sowing, at which time the experiment was halted. The leaf number produced by the plants by this time is shown; these bars in the graph are marked with a dashed line b) FTa1 transcript accumulation in 10- day-old T3 transgenic lines and control plants in LD was measured using qRT-PCR. Relative transcript abundance of FTa1 12 h after lights on in LD conditions is shown with levels normalised to At2g32170 (mean +/- SD of 3 PCR replicates is shown). (c) FT transcript accumulation in 10- day-old T3 transgenic lines and control plants in LD was measured using qRT-PCR. Relative transcript abundance of FT 12 h after lights on in LD conditions is shown with levels normalised to At2g32170 (mean +/- SD of 3 PCR replicates is shown).