Abstract
It has been reported that the receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases (RLCKs) regulate many biological processes in plants, but only a few members have been functionally characterized. Here, we isolated a rice gene encoding AtRRK1 homology protein kinase, OsRRK1, which belongs to the RLCK VI subfamily. OsRRK1 transcript accumulated in many tissues at low to moderate levels and at high levels in leaves. Overexpression of OsRRK1 (OE-OsRRK1) caused adaxial rolling and erect morphology of rice leaves. In the rolled leaves of OE-OsRRK1 plants, both the number and the size of the bulliform cells are decreased compared to the wild-type (WT) plants. Moreover, the height, tiller number, and seed setting rate were reduced in OE-OsRRK1 plants. In addition, the brown planthopper (BPH), a devastating pest of rice, preferred to settle on WT plants than on the OE-OsRRK1 plants in a two-host choice test, indicating that OE-OsRRK1 conferred an antixenosis resistance to BPH. The analysis of transcriptome sequencing demonstrated that several receptor kinases and transcription factors were differentially expressed in OE-OsRRK1 plants and WT plants. These results indicated that OsRRK1 may play multiple roles in the development and defense of rice, which may facilitate the breeding of novel rice varieties.
Highlights
Increasing crop yield is a major challenge for modern agriculture (Ray et al, 2012)
BLAST analysis in the NCBI database showed that this receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases (RLCKs) exhibits 57% amino acid sequence identity with AtRRK1 (Rop-interacting receptor-like kinase 1) from Arabidopsis, we named this gene OsRRK1 (LOC_Os06g47820)
We found that the expression of OsRLCK167 in RNA interference (RNAi) plants showed no difference from the WT plants (Supplementary Figure S7B)
Summary
Regulating leaf development has been considered an effective way to achieve a breakthrough of potential yield for crops (Sinclair and Sheehy, 1999). Appropriate leaf shape is an important characteristic of the super-high-yield hybrid rice idiotype, in which the last three leaves from the top are long, erect, narrow, V-shaped (rolled), and thick (Yuan, 1997). Moderate leaf rolling in rice leads to erect leaf canopies, improves photosynthetic efficiency, accelerates dry-matter accumulation, and increases grain yield (Lang et al, 2004; Zhang et al, 2009; Zou et al, 2011). Isolation of genes controlling leaf rolling are expected to be beneficial for developing crops with the desired architecture (Zhang et al, 2009; Xu et al, 2014)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
