Isolation of flower and fruit formation determination gene using the floral mutant, and use to horticultural production

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Tomato floral mutant, Leafy inflorescence (lfi), does not develop a flower but indeterminant inflorescences with vegetative leaves and leaf-like organs. Many vegetative meristem-like primodia were successively differentiated in immature inflorescences of lfi plants. However, the fusion of inflorescence shoots was observed in developed lfi inflorescences. In addition, the leaf-like organs occasionally developed into fleshy fruit-like bodies. These characteristics suggest that the lfi inflorescence have a potential to form carpels. lfi plants also showed a late-flowering phenotype. When floral identity genes, TOFL and TDR4, were cloned by RT-PCR, a 12-bp deletion was observed in TOFL cDNA from lfi plants. The deletion was in a region highly conserved among several LFY/FLO homologues, suggesting the deletion resulted in lfi phenotype. The expression of flower organ identity genes, TDR5, TDR6, and TAG1, was inhibited in lfi inflorescences, suggesting the important role of TOFL in the induction of flower organ identity genes. However, those genes were also expressed during development of fleshy fruit-like bodies. Thus, there is the other pathway to induce the flower organ identity genes.