Two LEAFY homologs ILFY1 and ILFY2 control reproductive and vegetative developments in Isoetes L.

LEAFY (LFY) is a plant-specific transcription factor, which is found in algae and all land plants. LFY homologs exert ancestral roles in regulating cell division and obtain novel functions to control floral identity. Isoetes L. is an ancient genus of heterosporous lycophytes. However, characters about LFY homologs in lycophytes remain poorly investigated. In this study, two LFY homologs, ILFY1 and ILFY2, were cloned from five Isoetes species, including I. hypsophila, I. yunguiensis, I. sinensis, I. orientalis, and I. taiwanensis. The full length of ILFY1 was 1449–1456 bp with an open reading frame (ORF) of 927–936 bp. The full length of ILFY2 was 1768 bp with ORF of 726 bp. Phylogenetic tree revealed that ILFY1 and ILFY2 were separated into two clades, and I. hypsophila were separated with the others. Expression analysis demonstrated that IsLFY1 and IsLFY2 for I. sinensis did not show functional diversity. The two transcripts were similarly accumulated in both vegetative and reproductive tissues and highly expressed in juvenile tissues. In addition, the IsLFY1 and IsLFY2 transgenic Arabidopsis similarly did not promote precocious flowering, and they were inactive to rescue lfy mutants. The results facilitate general understandings about the characteristics of LFY in Isoetes and evolutionary process.