FCA, a gene controlling flowering time in Arabidopsis, encodes a protein containing RNA-binding domains

The role of the FCA promoter in the regulation of flowering time in arabidopsis plants was analyzed via X-ray mutagenesis. The arabidopsis fca-mutants exhibited impaired plant development during the vegetative and reproductive stages. The transcript gamma was also characterized as the genetic factor that encodes the FCA protein which promoted the posttranscriptional cascade that regulated flowering time in arabidopsis.