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Regulation of OsSPL14 by OsmiR156 defines ideal plant architecture in rice

Nature Genetics volume 42, pages 541–544 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Increasing crop yield is a major challenge for modern agriculture. The development of new plant types, which is known as ideal plant architecture (IPA), has been proposed as a means to enhance rice yield potential over that of existing high-yield varieties1,2. Here, we report the cloning and characterization of a semidominant quantitative trait locus, IPA1 (Ideal Plant Architecture 1), which profoundly changes rice plant architecture and substantially enhances rice grain yield. The IPA1 quantitative trait locus encodes OsSPL14 (SOUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE 14) and is regulated by microRNA (miRNA) OsmiR156 in vivo. We demonstrate that a point mutation in OsSPL14 perturbs OsmiR156-directed regulation of OsSPL14, generating an 'ideal' rice plant with a reduced tiller number, increased lodging resistance and enhanced grain yield. Our study suggests that OsSPL14 may help improve rice grain yield by facilitating the breeding of new elite rice varieties.

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Figure 1: Map-based cloning of the IPA1 QTL and subcellular localization of the OsSPL14-GFP fusion protein.
Figure 2: Expression pattern of OsSPL14 and confirmation of OsmiR156-directed regulation on OsSPL14.
Figure 3: Effects of the point mutation in OsSPL14ipa1 on the OsmiR156-directed regulation of OsSPL14.
Figure 4: Phenotypic characterization of NIL OsSPL14ipa1 plants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Chong (Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for providing the pTCK303 vector. This work was supported by grants from Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China (2008ZX08009), Ministry of Science and Technology (2005CB1208) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (30710103903).

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Author notes

  1. Dawei Xue

    Present address: Present address: College of Life and Environment Sciences, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.,

  2. Yongqing Jiao, Yonghong Wang and Dawei Xue: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics and National Center for Plant Gene Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yongqing Jiao, Yonghong Wang, Jing Wang, Guifu Liu, Zefu Lu & Jiayang Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, China

    Dawei Xue, Meixian Yan, Guojun Dong, Dali Zeng, Xudong Zhu & Qian Qian

Authors
  1. Yongqing Jiao
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Contributions

Y.J. and Y.W. designed the research, performed experiments, analyzed data and wrote the paper. D.X. performed experiments and analyzed data. J.W., M.Y., G.L., G.D., D.Z., Z.L and X.Z. performed the experiments. Q.Q. designed the research and analyzed the data. J.L. supervised the project, designed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qian Qian or Jiayang Li.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 and Supplementary Figures 1–11. (PDF 1184 kb)

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Jiao, Y., Wang, Y., Xue, D. et al. Regulation of OsSPL14 by OsmiR156 defines ideal plant architecture in rice. Nat Genet 42, 541–544 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.591

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