No abstract

Members of the pistillata-like (PI-like) subfamily of plant MADS-box genes play multiple roles in regulation of reproductive meristems and the specification of sepal and petal identities. However, the function of PI-like genes in the Sedirea japonica is largely unknown. In this study, a full-length of PI-like gene in Sedirea japonica (designated PI-like, GenBank No. KM975642) was cloned using 5'/3'-RACE. The PI-like gene were 921 bp length with an open reading frame (ORF) of 633 bp, which encodes a protein of 210 amino acids, with a putative molecular weight of 24.5 kDa and a theoretical isoelectric point (pI) of 9.3. It also contains a 96-bp 5′ untranslated region (UTR), and a 192-bp 3′ UTR. The result of multiple sequence alignment indicated that PI-like belongs to a Class-B MADS-box gene. In addition, the phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that PI-like gene was highly like PIlike in Phalaenopsis. The qRT-PCR results revealed that the expression of PI-like gene was higher in the tissues on florescence compared to vegetative phase, suggesting that the PI-like gene of S. japonica performed important physiological functions on florescence.

No abstract

Phalaenopsis are grown widely as cut-flowers and potted plants in the floriculture trade. Here, we report the genetic linkage maps for Phalaenopsis, which were developed by genotyping 88 F 1 progenies from a cross between Phalaenopsis '462' (male) and Phalaenopsis '20' (female) with amplification fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP) in a "two-way pseudotestcross" mapping strategy. For a total of 416 polymorphic loci showing Mendelian segregation were generated from 71 AFLP primer combinations. The data were analyzed using JoinMap 3.0 to construct the parent-specific linkage maps. The paternal map consisted of 15 linkage groups and 122 AFLP makers, covering 820.3 cM with a mean distance of 6.7 cM between adjacent markers. The maternal map consisted of 14 linkage groups with 175 loci, resulting in a total genetic distance of 878.3 cM and an average genetic distance of 5.0 cM between adjacent markers. Yet, as far as we know, this is the first study to construct the linkage map of Phalaenopsis. The two maps will serve as the frameworks for mapping of horticultural quantitative trait locis (QTLs) and furnish reference information for the application of future marker-assisted selection in Phalaenopsis breeding.