FPF1 modulates the competence to flowering in Arabidopsis

During the transition to flowing the FPF1 gene is expressed in the peripheral zone of apical meristems and in floral meristems of Arabidopsis. Constitutive expression of FPF1 causes early flowering in Arabidopsis under both long-day and short-day conditions and leads to a shortened juvenile phase as measured by the trichome distribution on the abaxial leaf surface. In the classical late flowering mutants, overexpression of FPF1 compensates partially for the late flowering phenotype, indicating that FPF1 acts downstream or in a parallel pathway to the mutated genes. The co-overexpression of 35S::AP1 with 35S::FPF1 leads to a synergistic effect on the shortening of the time to flowering under short-day conditions. The co-overexpression of 35S::FPF1 and 35S::LFY, however, shows only an additive reduction of flowering time and the conversion of nearly every shoot meristem, except the inflorescence meristem, to a floral meristem under the same light conditions. In addition, the constitutive expression of FPF1 attenuates the severe lfy-1 phenotype under short days and phenocopies to a great extent the lfy-1 mutant grown under long-day conditions. Thus, we assume that FPF1 modulates the competence to flowering of apical meristems.