Abstract
The 'green revolution' was fueled by the introduction of the semi-dwarf trait into cereal crop cultivars. The semi-dwarf cultivars—which respond abnormally to the plant growth hormone gibberellin (GA)—are more resistant to wind and rain damage and thus yield more grain when fertilized. To generate dwarf rice plants using a biotechnological approach, we modified the level of GA by overproduction of a GA catabolic enzyme, GA 2-oxidase. When the gene encoding GA 2-oxidase, OsGA2ox1, was constitutively expressed by the actin promoter, transgenic rice showed severe dwarfism but failed to set grain because GA is involved in both shoot elongation and reproductive development. In contrast, OsGA2ox1 ectopic expression at the site of bioactive GA synthesis in shoots under the control of the promoter of a GA biosynthesis gene, OsGA3ox2 (D18), resulted in a semi-dwarf phenotype that is normal in flowering and grain development. The stability and inheritance of these traits shows the feasibility of genetic improvement of cereal crops by modulation of GA catabolism and bioactive GA content.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported, in part, by the Rice Genome Project from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (IP-1010 to T.S.), by a grant-in-aid for scientific research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan (11306003 to S.I.) and by a grant from the Program for Promotion of Basic Research Activities for Innovation of Biosciences of Japan (to M.M. and H.T.).
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Sakamoto, T., Morinaka, Y., Ishiyama, K. et al. Genetic manipulation of gibberellin metabolism in transgenic rice. Nat Biotechnol 21, 909–913 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt847
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt847
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