Elevated sensitivity to gibberellin by vernalization in the vegetative rosette plants of Eustoma grandiflorum and Arabidopsis thaliana.

Changes in the sensitivity to gibberellin (GA) after vernalization were studied in the vegetative rosette of Eustoma grandiflorum and late flowering Arabidopsis thaliana mutant, fca-1. The sensitivity to GA after vernalization was monitored using the bolting rate of plants that were grown on a medium containing GA(3) or ancymidol. The bolting rates were higher in vernalized plants than non-vernalized plants when the same GA(3) concentration was used. There was a positive relationship between the duration of vernalization and the bolting rate in E. grandiflorum. In contrast, a negative relationship between the duration of treatment and bolting rate was found in the non-vernalized plants. In fca-1, the flowering time of vernalized plants was significantly reduced compared with the non-vernalized plants under various concentrations of GA(3) treatment. To elucidate whether this elevated sensitivity relates to the efficiency of GA signal transduction, we measured the transcript amounts of Expansin (Exp), which is up-regulated by GA, and GA20-oxidase (GA20ox) and GA3 beta-hydroxylase (GA3betahy), which are down-regulated by GA. The transcript amounts were estimated using the Taq-Man PCR system based on combinations of primers and probes that specifically detect the genes, and normalized by the transcript amount of ubiquitin gene measured as an internal standard. For each concentration of GA treatments examined, Expansin of both E. grandiflorum and A. thaliana was induced at a higher rate in the vernalized plants than in the non-vernalized plants. The expression of GA20ox and GA3betahy of E. grandiflorum decreased faster in the vernalized plants than the non-vernalized plants. We conclude that vernalization is a critical environmental cue not only for initiating GA biosyntheses in vegetative rosette, but also for elevating the GA sensitivity of the plants via a GA signal transduction pathway.