Identification and functional verification of PlFT gene associated with flowering in herbaceous peony based on transcriptome analysis

The herbaceous peony(Paeonia lactiflora Pall.)is considered to be a highly valued cut flower plant.It has large flower with rich colors.However,there has been little or no research into the genes related to its flower development.In this study,we used the Illumina HiSeq platform to analyze the RNA-Seq comparative transcriptome of the P.lactiflora'Dafugui'in three different flowering periods.Nine cDNA libraries were established,from which 92.53 Gb data with 81,788 unigenes were obtained.We screened the genes related to P.lactiflora flowering,isolated and cloned the PlFT gene related to flowering.The total length of the PlFT gene was 592 bp,which had a complete open reading frame of 522 bp and encoded 173 amino acids.The accession number of the PlFT gene is MT249229.To test the role of PlFT,we constructed an expression vector for genetic transformation.Its expression in Arabidposis mutant indicated that PlFT was involved in the flowering of P.lactiflora.This is the first transcriptome analysis of flower development in P.lactiflora.Our results provide some fundamental information for further analyzing the molecular mechanism underlying flower development of P.lactiflora.