Flower development in garlic: the ups and downs of gaLFY expression

The lack of sexual processes prohibits genetic studies and conventional breeding in commercial cultivars of garlic. Recent restoration of garlic flowering ability by environmental manipulations has opened new avenues for physiological and genetic studies. The LEAFY homologue gaLFY has been shown to be involved in the floral development, while two alternatively spliced gaLFY transcripts are expressed in flowering genotypes. In the present work, quantitative real-time PCR and two techniques of RNA in situ hybridization were employed to analyze spatiotemporal expression patterns of the gaLFY during consequent stages of the garlic reproductive process. Temporal accumulation of gaLFY is strongly associated with reproductive organs, significantly increased during florogenesis and gametogenesis, and is down-regulated in the vegetative meristems and topsets in the inflorescence. The two alternative transcripts of the gene show different expression patterns: a high level of the long gaLFY transcript coincided only with floral transition, while further up-regulation of this gene in the reproductive organs is associated mainly with the short gaLFY transcript. It is concluded that gaLFY is involved at different stages of the sexual reproduction of garlic. These new insights broaden our basic understanding of flower biology of garlic and help to establish conventional and molecular breeding systems for this important crop.