Prof. HAN Yuepeng and doctor CHENG Jun from Wuhan Botanical Garden cloned the gene ‘Raint’ controlling the variegated coloration of peach flowers taken HBH as the materials. 

Researchers found that Raint was involved in the anthocyanin transport from cytoplasm to vacuole. In white flowers, a frame shift mutation of Raint gene was caused by an insertion of two base pair in coding sequences, and resulted in no anthocyanin accumulated in white flowers.  

Interestingly, an insertion of one base pair other than a deletion of two base pair in the mutation site of Raint gene could make white flowers regaining anthocyanin accumulation. This meant more than one mutation occurred in the same site of Riant gene. 

In addition, the mutations of Riant gene could occur in different development stage and different cell level of flower petal, and caused a variety of coloration phenotype of peach flowers.  

Results entitled “A small indel mutation in an anthocyanin transporter causes variegated colouration of peach flowers” were published in Journal Experimental Botany. This project was supported by funds received from the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.