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Abstract Soybean is a photoperiod-sensitive staple crop. Its photoperiodic flowering has major consequences for latitudinal adaptation and grain yield. Here, we identify and characterise a flowering locus named Time of flower 4b ( Tof4b ), which encodes E1-Like b (E1Lb), a homologue of the key soybean floral repressor E1. Tof4b protein physically associates with the promoters of two FLOWERING LOCUS T ( FT ) genes to repress their transcription and delay flowering to impart soybean adaptation to high latitudes. Three E1 homologues undergo subfunctionalisation and show differential subcellular localisation. Moreover, they all possess self-repression capability and each suppresses the two homologous counterparts. Subfunctionalisation and the transcriptional regulation of E1 genes collectively finetune flowering time and high-latitude adaptation in soybean. We propose a model for the functional fate of the three E1 genes after the soybean whole-genome duplication events, refine the molecular mechanisms underlying high-latitude adaption, and provide a potential molecular-breeding resource.
Fang et al. (Tue,) studied this question.