Auxin-Mediated Regulation of Dorsal Vascular Cell Development May Be Responsible for Sucrose Phloem Unloading in Large Panicle Rice.

Yao Deng,Yue Wu,Yanfeng Ding,Jiaqi Bai,Li Ma,Yuxiang Hu,Yongchao Yu,Lin Chen,Yan Lin,Zhen Wang,Ziteng Wang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.630997

Abstract

Large panicle rice cultivars often fail to fulfill their high-yield potential due to the poor grain filling of inferior spikelets (IS), which appears as initially stagnant development and low final seed weight. Understanding the mechanism of the initial stagnancy is important to improve IS grain filling. In this study, superior spikelets (SS) were removed from two homozygous japonica rice varieties (W1844 and CJ03) with the same sink capacity in an attempt to force photosynthate transport to the IS. The results showed that SS removal increased the grain weight, sucrose content, starch accumulation, and endogenous IAA levels of IS during the initial grain-filling stage. SS removal also improved the patterns of vascular cells in the dorsal pericarp and the expression levels of genes involved in sucrose transport (OsSUTs and OsSWEETs) and IAA metabolism (OsYUCs and OsPINs). Exogenous IAA application advanced the initiation of grain filling by increasing the sucrose content and the gene expression levels of sucrose transporters. These results indicate that auxin may act like a signal substance and play a vital role in initial grain filling by regulating dorsal vascular cell development and sucrose phloem unloading into caryopsis.

Highlights

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the main food source for more than 50% of the world’s population
Poor grain filling of inferior spikelets (IS) is common in large panicle rice (Yang and Zhang, 2006; Ao et al, 2008)
The present study large panicle varieties, and the lag time of IS is longer in CJ03 found that the long lag stage of IS development and grain filling (Chen et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the main food source for more than 50% of the world’s population. Large panicle rice varieties with high sink capacity that exhibit numerous spikelets per panicle are widely used in modern production (Cheng et al, 2007). This type never reaches the theoretical maximum yield due to the poor grainfilling quality (Ao et al, 2008; Yang and Zhang, 2010). The poor inferior spikelet filling is a limiting factor to further enhance grain yield potential, and it is often related to the insufficient supply and utilization of assimilates

Methods

Results

Conclusion