Ecotype-dependent genetic regulation of bolting time in the Arabidopsis mutants with increased number of leaves.

Leaves are the major biomass-producing organs in herbaceous plants and mainly develop during vegetative stage by activities of shoot apical meristem. There is a strong correlation between leaf number and bolting, a characteristic phenotype during the transition to reproductive phase in Arabidopsis thaliana. In order to study interactions between leaf number and bolting, we isolated a Landsberg erecta-derived mutant named multifolia1 (mfo1) that produces increased number of leaves and bolts at the same time as the wild type. Through positional cloning and allelism test, mfo1 was found to be an allele of a previously reported mutant, altered meristem program1-1 (amp1-1) that is defective in a glutamate carboxypeptidase and bolts earlier than its wild type, Columbia ecotype, with the increased number of leaves. The bolting time differences between mfo1 and amp1, despite the same phenotype of many leaves, suggest the existence of genetic factor(s) differently function in each ecotype in the presence of mfo1/amp1 mutation.