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Blocking miR396 increases rice yield by shaping inflorescence architecture

Nature Plants volume 2, Article number: 15196 (2016) Cite this article

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Abstract

Strategies to increase rice productivity to meet the global demand have been the main concern of breeders around the world. Although a growing number of functional genes related to crop yield have been characterized, our understanding of its associated regulatory pathways is limited. Using rice as a model, we find that blocking miR396 greatly increases grain yield by modulating development of auxiliary branches and spikelets through direct induction of the growth regulating factor 6 (OsGRF6) gene. The upregulation of OsGRF6 results in the coordinated activation of several immediate downstream biological clades, including auxin (IAA) biosynthesis, auxin response factors, and branch and spikelet development-related transcription factors. This study describes a conserved microRNA (miRNA)-dependent regulatory module that integrates inflorescence development, auxin biosynthesis and signalling pathways, and could potentially be used in engineering high-yield crop plants.

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Figure 1: Phenotypes of miR396b overexpression (OE) and miR396 mimicry (MIM) transgenic rice.
Figure 2: Phenotypes and agronomic traits of OsGRF6, OsGRF8 and OsGRF9 overexpression (OE) transgenic plants.
Figure 3: | Plant phenotypes and grain yield of OsGRF6 associated transgenic rice lines.
Figure 4: CHIP-seq analysis of the OsGRF6 protein-bound cis-element and promoters of related genes.
Figure 5: A model of the miR396b-GRF6 module for the regulation of rice grain yield.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by the National Transgenic Research and Development Program (2011ZX08001-004), the 863 Program (2012AA10A303) and the National Science Foundation (31370363) of China. We would like to thank Xuefeng Chen, Yan Zhou, Bo Zhong and Jing Yao (College of Life Science, Wuhan University) for their critical reading and advice during the preparation of this report. We also thank Yu Zhou and Pinji Lei (College of Life Science, Wuhan University) for providing assistance in the bioinformatic analysis.

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Author notes

  1. Feng Gao and Kun Wang: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, Key Laboratory for Research and Utilization of Heterosis in Indica Rice of Ministry of Agriculture, College of Life Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

    Feng Gao, Kun Wang, Ying Liu, Yunping Chen, Pian Chen, Daqing Jiang, Fengfeng Fan, Yingguo Zhu & Shaoqing Li

  2. Institute of Plant Physiology & Ecology, SIBS, CAS,

    Zhenying Shi

  3. National Key Laboratory of Genetic Crop Improvement, Huazhong Agriculture University, Wuhan 430070, China

    Jie Luo

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  1. Feng Gao
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Contributions

F.G. performed in situ hybridization, SEM, EMSA and phenotypic observation. K.W. conducted microArray, CHIP-seq and RNA-seq analysis. Y.L. performed promoter analysis. Y.C. performed overexpression genesis. P.C. performed qPCR and developed the GRF transgene. Z.S. conducted the construction of the MIM396 vector. J.L. performed hormone analysis. D.J. performed gel blotting of miRNA in the hybrids. F.F. and Y.Z. designed and performed the field experiments. S.L. designed the experiments and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shaoqing Li.

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Gao, F., Wang, K., Liu, Y. et al. Blocking miR396 increases rice yield by shaping inflorescence architecture. Nature Plants 2, 15196 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2015.196

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