The differential expression of HvCO9, a member of the CONSTANS-like gene family, contributes to the control of flowering under short-day conditions in barley

HvCO9 was characterized to elucidate the barley flowering control mechanisms and to investigate the functional diversification of the barley CONSTANS-like (CO-like) genes in flowering. HvCO9 was located on the same chromosome, 1HL, as Ppd-H2 (HvFT3), which is a positive regulator of short-day (SD) flowering. A phylogenetic analysis showed that HvCO9 was located on the same branch of the CO-like gene tree as rice Ghd7 and the barley and wheat VRN2 genes, which are all negative regulators of flowering. High level HvCO9 expressions were observed under SD conditions, whereas its expression levels were quite low under long-day (LD) conditions. HvCO9 expression correlated with HvFT1 and HvFT2 expression under SD conditions, although no clear effect of HvCO9 on HvFT3 expression, or vice versa, under SD conditions was observed. The over-expression of HvCO9 in rice plants produced a remarkable delay in flowering. In transgenic rice, the expression levels of the flowering-related Ehd1 gene, which is a target gene of Ghd7, and its downstream genes were suppressed, causing a delay in flowering. These results suggest that HvCO9 may act as a negative regulator of flowering under non-inductive SD conditions in barley; this activity is similar to that of rice Ghd7 under non-inductive LD conditions, but the functional targets of these genes may be different. Our results indicate that barley has developed its own pathways to control flowering by using homologous genes with modifications for the timing of expression. Further, it is hypothesized that each pathway may target different genes after gene duplication or species diversification.