Abstract: The TCP family is an ancient group of plant developmental transcription factors that
regulate cell division in vegetative and reproductive structures. The ECE clade TCP genes include genes
mainly involved in the development of axillary meristems giving rise to either flowers or lateral shoots.
They play critical roles in plant evolution and crop domestication process. In order to study the function of
ECE clade of petunia，degenerate primer PCR method and RACE（rapid amplification of cDNA ends）
method were used to isolate the ECE clade TCP genes from petunia. Four full-length cDNA sequences and
their corresponding gnomic sequences were obtained，and designated as PhTCP1，PhTCP2，PhTCP3 and
PhTCP4 respectively. The GenBank accession numbers for cDNA are JQ400104–JQ400107. Genomic
DNA and cDNA analyses showed that PhTCP1–4 genes encode proteins of 406，332，341 and 343 amino
acids respectively. The PhTCP1 is a gene without intron，while the others have 1–2 introns. Phylogenetic
analysis indicated that PhTCP1–4 genes belong to the CYC1，CYC2 and CYC3 clade respectively.
Real-time quantitative PCR showed that PhTCP1–4 genes were expressed mainly in were expressed mainly were expressed mainly in axillary buds of mature petunia，suggesting that the ECE clade TCP genes may
be primarily associated with the growth and development of axillary buds

Key words: petunia, TCP gene, clone, expression pattern