Fig. 6
From: Precise fine-turning of GhTFL1 by base editing tools defines ideal cotton plant architecture
Molecular mechanism of plant architecture in the cotton GhTFL1L86P and GhTFL1K53G+S78G mutants. a Comparative amino acid sequences and structural domain analysis of GhTFL1 from different plants. Three amino acid sites, K53, S78, and L86, are marked with green pentagrams; two structural domains are marked with blue boxes. b Analysis of conserved regions, contact interfaces, and mutation-sensitive regions of GhTFL1 protein. c Transcriptome analysis of stems and leaves of Ghtfl1, GhTFL1L86P, and Jin668. Volcano plots of differential genes under comparison of the three lines in stems. d A firefly LCI assay confirms that GhTFL1 and GhTFL1L86P interact with GhAP1 and Gh14-3-3, respectively. A quantitative comparison of luciferase signals showed that GhTFL1 interacted more strongly with GhAP1 and Gh14-3-3, respectively, than GhTFL1L86P interacted with GhAP1 and Gh14-3–3. e Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) assay showing that GhTFL1 and GhTFL1L86P interact with GhAP1 in the nucleus and GhTFL1 and GhTFL1L86P interact with Gh14-3-3 in the nucleus and membrane. The N-terminus of yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) was fused to GhTFL1 and GhTFL1L86P, while the C-terminus of YFP was fused to GhAP1 and Gh14-3-3. f Model for antagonistic roles of TFL1 and FT in promoting branch or floral fate. Schematic model illustrating the role of GhTFL1. During the nutritional growth phase, GhTFL1 binds to Gh14-3-3, GhFD to repress the downstream flowering gene GhAP1, thereby maintaining the nutritional growth of the plant. When the GhTFL1 gene is completely knocked out, nutritional growth is prematurely terminated, resulting in early flowering, reduced plant height, and other phenotypes. When a single base mutation occurs at some of the GhTFL1 loci, the function of GhTFL1 to repress downstream flowering genes is diminished, resulting in mutants with intermediate phenotypes. Created with BioRender.com