Abstract: Floral transition is a crucial stage for establishment of life cycle and agronomic traits in sorghum. But the mechanism underlying this biological process remains largely elusive. In this study, we cloned the coding sequence of putative SbAGL6 genes from sorghum cultivar, Roma, by in silico sequence analysis and reverse-tran- scription PCR. The DNA sequence alignment revealed that SbAGL6 gene encoded a transcription factor with 256 ami- no acids which included a MADS-box domain in the N-terminal and a K-box domain in the middle. SbAGL6 gene shared high sequence similarity with AtAGL6 gene,indicated the functional similarity between two genes. To clarify the biological functions of SbAGL6 gene,we constructed an inducible over-expression vector for SbAGL6 based on Gateway cloning technology,and transformed SbAGL6 over-expression cassette into Arabidopsis plants. The phenotypic analysis demonstrated that transgenic plants flowered earlier than the wild type after application of inducer Dexamethasone (Dex) . But transgenic plants would show no difference from wild type plants under mock treatment. These results sup- ported our proposition that SbAGL6 gene might play an important role in controlling flowering time in sorghum.

Key words: Sorghum, SbAGL6, Arabidopsis thaliana, Floral transition

CLC Number: 

• S514