Abstract
Heterosis is a common biological phenomenon in nature. It substantially contributes to the biomass yield and grain yield of plants. Moreover, this phenomenon results in high economic returns in agricultural production. However, the utilization of heterosis far exceeds the level of theoretical research on this phenomenon. In this review, the recent progress in research on heterosis in plants was reviewed from the aspects of classical genetics, parental genetic distance, quantitative trait loci, transcriptomes, proteomes, epigenetics (DNA methylation, histone modification, and small RNA), and hormone regulation. A regulatory network of various heterosis-related genes under the action of different regulatory factors was summarized. This review lays a foundation for the in-depth study of the molecular and physiological aspects of this phenomenon to promote its effects on increasing the yield of agricultural production.
Highlights
Heterosis is a common biological phenomenon in nature
These results strongly proved that superdominance is an important genetic basis for heterosis
Changes in gene expression levels and expression patterns between hybrids and parents have been compared via molecular biology and molecular genetics techniques
Summary
Heterosis is a common biological phenomenon in nature. It substantially contributes to the biomass yield and grain yield of plants. This phenomenon results in high economic returns in agricultural production. The utilization of heterosis far exceeds the level of theoretical research on this phenomenon. The recent progress in research on heterosis in plants was reviewed from the aspects of classical genetics, parental genetic distance, quantitative trait loci, transcriptomes, proteomes, epigenetics (DNA methylation, histone modification, and small RNA), and hormone regulation. This review lays a foundation for the in-depth study of the molecular and physiological aspects of this phenomenon to promote its effects on increasing the yield of agricultural production
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