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Published online: 1 April 2009 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2009.64

Rice genetics: Know grain, know gain

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2009) istockphoto.com/Sze Fei Wong

Rice is one of the most important crops in the world, and China has improved its crop productivity since the 1980s by growing high-yield rice strains. About 30% of the rice plants cultivated in China today are sticky, short-grained japonica varieties — mostly improved strains, such as Shennong 265 and Jiahua 1. Xiangdong Fu at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and co-workers¹ have identified a region of the rice genome that makes these rice strains high yielding.

Previous studies have already isolated several genes that affect properties of the rice plant's panicle (branched cluster) in which the grains grow. For example, Gn1a is a gene that controls the number of grains per panicle, and qPE9-1 is a gene responsible for the stiffness of panicle. All of these genes were found on chromosome 9.

The researchers suspected that there exists a genomic region that determines panicle traits. They generated a large crossbred population of japonica and indica cultivars, studied their genomes and panicle properties, and were able to pinpoint a narrow region that regulates panicle density, number of grains per panicle and panicle stiffness. They referred to this region as DEP1, and all hybrids carrying a mutant allele at DEP1 had denser, stronger panicles and more grains on each panicle.

The finding gives scientists a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of panicle branching and may provide a means of manipulating grain yield in rice.

The authors of this work are from:
State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; National Center for Plant Gene Research, Beijing, China; State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou, China; Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; College of Life Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, China; State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Reference

1. Huang, X. et al. Natural variation at the DEP1 locus enhances grain yield in rice. Nature Genet. doi:10.1038/ng.352 (2009). | Article |