A DEFICIENS Homolog from the Dioecious Tree Black Cottonwood is Expressed in Female and Male Floral Meristems of the Two-whorled, Unisexual Flowers

We isolated PTD, a member of the DEFICIENS (DEF) family of MADS box transcription factors, from the dioecious tree, black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa). In females, in situ hybridization experiments showed that PTD mRNA was first detectable in cells on the flanks of the inflorescence meristem, before differentiation of individual flowers was visually detectable. In males, the onset of PTD expression was delayed until after individual flower differentiation had begun and floral meristems were developing. Although PTD was initially expressed throughout the inner whorl meristem in female and male flowers, its spatial expression pattern became sex-specific as reproductive primordia began to form. PTD expression was maintained in stamen primordia, but excluded from carpel primordia, as well as vegetative tissues. Although PTD is phylogenetically most closely related to the largely uncharacterized TM6 subfamily of the DEF/APETELA3(AP3)/TM6 group, its spatio-temporal expression patterns are more similar to that of DEF and AP3 than to other members of the TM6 subfamily.