Fig. 6

Alignment (a) and phylogenetic analyses (b) of FT/TFL1 proteins from F. macclureana and other plants, as well as the expression pattern of FmHd3a across six different tissues collected by RT-qPCR (c). The involving sequences and their accession numbers are: three FT/TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1) proteins from A. thaliana: AtFT (AT1G65480.1), AtTFL1 (NP_196004.1) and BROTHER OF FT AND TFL1 (AtBFT, AT5G62040.1); and four FT/TFL1 proteins from Oryza sativa: OsFT (XP_015619436.1), OsRFT1 (rice RICE FLOWERING LOCUS T 1 (RFT1), BAO03220.1), OsHd3a (XP_015611892.1) and two RCNs (putative TFL1/CENTRORADIALIS (CEN) orthologs): OsRCN1 (AAD42895.1) and OsRCN3 (AAD42896.1). Amino acid sequences with double underline and single underline indicate the critical motifs in PEBP proteins [27]; asterisk and triangles indicate the invariant histidine in the PEBP domain [28] and two conserved sites in inducer FTs [29], respectively. Hollow circles indicate the position where the critical amino acid variation occurred between Arabidopsis TFL1 and FT, an activator and a repressor of flowering [30]. Relative expression levels were calculated using the 2^−ΔΔCT method to reflect expressions relatively more veritably. The statistical significance was tested by one-way ANOVA, considering P < 0.05 and P < 0.01 as statistically significant and extremely significant, respectively. Significant differences in transcript abundance between different tissues were then compared by Duncan’s multiple range test using SPSS 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA)