PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Yan, Liuling AU - Loukoianov, Artem AU - Blechl, Ann AU - Tranquilli, Gabriela AU - Ramakrishna, Wusirika AU - SanMiguel, Phillip AU - Bennetzen, Jeffrey L. AU - Echenique, Viviana AU - Dubcovsky, Jorge TI - The Wheat <em>VRN2</em> Gene Is a Flowering Repressor Down-Regulated by Vernalization AID - 10.1126/science.1094305 DP - 2004 Mar 12 TA - Science PG - 1640--1644 VI - 303 IP - 5664 4099 - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/303/5664/1640.short 4100 - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/303/5664/1640.full SO - Science2004 Mar 12; 303 AB - Plants with a winter growth habit flower earlier when exposed for several weeks to cold temperatures, a process called vernalization. We report here the positional cloning of the wheat vernalization gene VRN2, a dominant repressor of flowering that is down-regulated by vernalization. Loss of function of VRN2, whether by natural mutations or deletions, resulted in spring lines, which do not require vernalization to flower. Reduction of the RNA level of VRN2 by RNA interference accelerated the flowering time of transgenic winter-wheat plants by more than a month.