Figure 1.

The early-flowering phenotype segregates with low levels of DNA methylation but not with the METI antisense. The T3 progeny of T2 plant 10.1, which was hemizygous for the METI antisense transgene, flowered early even when they had lost the transgene by segregation. (A) Flowering times of unvernalized C24. (B) Flowering times of progeny that inherited the transgene; flowering times of progeny that did not inherit the transgene are shown in C. Methylation levels of a subset of plants from B were estimated, and in general, the level of methylation (35–45% of normal) correlated with the flowering time. The plant that flowered after 78 days (B) had a higher level of methylation (55% of normal), which may account for the later flowering time.