Regulation of Floral Organ Identity in Arabidopsis by Ectopic Expression of OsMADS58

The ABCDE model has been described comprehensively to interpret the mechanism of floral organ development. In Arabidopsis, AGMAOUS was a well-studied class C gene encoding a transcription factor with MADS box, and its overexpression in Arabidopsis induced the transformation of sepals to carpels and petals to stamens. However, there is little knowledge about the function of OsMADS58, which was a homologue of AGMAOUS in rice. In our study, OsMADS58 driven by the UBIQUITIN promoter was ectopicly expressed in Arabidopsis., and carpel-like sepals, incomplete petals and stamens instead of petals were found in different transgenic plants according to different OsMADS58 mRNA expression levels. The phenotype of transgenic plant was similar to the AGMAOUS overexpression plant, suggesting that OsMADS58 might play an important role in flower development like AGMAOUS and they keep conserved function during evolution.