Tomato SlCDF3 Delays Flowering Time by Regulating Different FT-Like Genes Under Long-Day and Short-Day Conditions

Photoperiod is a crucial inducer of plant flowering. CYCLING DOF FACTORs (CDFs) play pivotal roles in the flowering of long-day (LD) and short-day (SD) plants. However, the functions of CDFs in the photoperiod regulated flowering remain unclear in day-neutral plants. In the present study, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. cv. ‘Ailsa Craig’) seedlings of the wild-type and transgenic lines of overexpressing CDFs were treated with different photoperiods. The flowering time and the expression pattern of SlCDFs and other FT-like genes were investigated. The results showed that tomato SlCDF1, SlCDF2, SlCDF3, SlCDF4, and SlCDF5 are homologs to Arabidopsis CYCLING DOF FACTOR 1 (AtCDF1). SlCDF1–5 expression levels were influenced by the developmental stage and the tissue location, and notably, the expression patterns throughout light environments showed two opposite trends. Among the SlCDF1-5 overexpression transgenic lines, overexpressing SlCDF3 delayed flowering time in both LD (16 h light/8 h dark) and SD (8 h light/16 h dark) conditions. Furthermore, SlCDF3 led to an increase in the mRNA level of SlSP5G, a tomato FT-like gene, in LD conditions, while the transcription level of the other two FT-like genes, SlSP5G2 and SlSP5G3, were up-regulated in SD conditions. Taken together, at the transcription level, our results demonstrated that SlCDF3 played a significant role in controlling tomato flowering under LD and SD conditions, possibly through directly or indirectly regulating FT-like genes.