Ectopic expression of an AGAMOUS homolog NTAG1 from Chinese narcissus accelerated earlier flowering and senescence in Arabidopsis 
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Lijun Xiong ,
Yang Wang ,
Xiaofang Li 
Author Correspondence author
Molecular Plant Breeding, 2011, Vol. 2, No. 3 doi: 10.5376/mpb.2011.02.0003
Received: 28 Dec., 2010 Accepted: 06 Jan., 2011 Published: 29 Jan., 2011
Deng et al., 2011, Ectopic expression of an AGAMOUS homolog NTAG1 from Chinese narcissus accelerated earlier flowering and senescence in Arabidopsis, Molecular Plant Breeding Vol.2 No.3 (doi: 10.5376/mpb.2011.02.0003)
There are two cultivating varieties of Chinese narcissus, named as Yulinglong (Narcissus tazetta var. chinensis Roem. Florepleno) and Jinzhanyutai (Narcissus tazetta var. chinensis M. Roem.) well known in China. Yulinglong plants exhibit double flower resulted from petaloid stamens. However, the molecular basis of double flower formation is known little and unclear. Based on the flowering ABCDE model, double flower formation is commonly used to link to C functional genes. In this present paper, the isolation and characterization of NTAG1 gene, an AGAMOUS homolog from Chinese narcissus varieties mentioned above are reported. Sequence and expression pattern of NTAG1 gene exhibited the same in both tested varieties. It expresses only in the reproductive organs. Furthermore, functional analysis by using ectopic tests in Arabidopsis showed that NATG1 might be involved in the carpel identity and floral transition The effects of ectopic expression of NTAG1 mainly include dwarfing , early flowering, losing inflorescence indeterminacy,branch number increasing, and advancing senescence, whereas some of homeotic phenotypes gradually sisappeared in higher generation of transgenic plants. The utilizations of NATG1 gene in the future gene engineering were also discussed in the paper.