Functional analysis of alternative splicing of the FLOWERING LOCUS T orthologous gene in Chrysanthemum morifolium

As the junction of floral development pathways, the FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) protein called ‘florigen’ plays an important role in the process of plant flowering through signal integration. We isolated four transcripts encoding different isoforms of a FT orthologous gene CmFTL1, from Chrysanthemum morifolium cultivar ‘Jimba’. Sequence alignments suggested that the four transcripts are related to the intron 1. Expression analysis showed that four alternative splicing (AS) forms of CmFTL1 varied depending on the developmental stage of the flower. The functional complement experiment using an Arabidopsis mutant ft-10 revealed that the archetypal and AS forms of CmFTL1 had the function of complementing late flower phenotype in different levels. In addition, transgenic confirmation at transcript level showed CmFTL1 and CmFTL1ast coexist in the same tissue type at the same developmental stage, indicating a post-transcriptional modification of CmFTL1 in Arabidopsis. Moreover, ectopic expression of different AS forms in chrysanthemum resulted in the development of multiple altered phenotypes, varying degrees of early flowering. We found that an alternative splicing form (CmFTL1-astE134) without the exon 2 lacked the ability causing the earlier flower phenotype. The evidence in this study indicates that complex alternative processing of CmFTL1 transcripts in C. morifolium may be associated with flowering regulation and hold some potential for biotechnical engineering to create early-flowering phenotypes in ornamental cultivars.