Arabidopsis thaliana expressing the cauliflower mosaic virus ORF VI transgene has a late flowering phenotype

Expression of open reading frame (ORF) VI of cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana caused a typical syndrome characterised by leaf chlorosis, vein clearing, plant stunting and reduced fertility. In addition and in comparison to untransformed controls we observed the formation of much larger rosettes of leaves combined with much later flowering and more extensive tillering. In these aspects, the ORF VI transgenic plants resembled late flowering mutants. All these phenotypes correlated with expression of ORF VI in three lines of transgenic plants which were produced independently, with different Ti-plasmid derived vectors and with different selective markers. The late flowering phenotype cosegregated with the transgene.