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.