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Control of root system architecture by DEEPER ROOTING 1 increases rice yield under drought conditions

Nature Genetics volume 45, pages 1097–1102 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

The genetic improvement of drought resistance is essential for stable and adequate crop production in drought-prone areas1. Here we demonstrate that alteration of root system architecture improves drought avoidance through the cloning and characterization of DEEPER ROOTING 1 (DRO1), a rice quantitative trait locus controlling root growth angle. DRO1 is negatively regulated by auxin and is involved in cell elongation in the root tip that causes asymmetric root growth and downward bending of the root in response to gravity. Higher expression of DRO1 increases the root growth angle, whereby roots grow in a more downward direction. Introducing DRO1 into a shallow-rooting rice cultivar by backcrossing enabled the resulting line to avoid drought by increasing deep rooting, which maintained high yield performance under drought conditions relative to the recipient cultivar. Our experiments suggest that control of root system architecture will contribute to drought avoidance in crops.

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Figure 1: Phenotypic characterization and cloning of DRO1.
Figure 2: Effect of DRO1 on root growth angle and root gravitropic curvature.
Figure 3: Expression analysis of DRO1.
Figure 4: Molecular characterization of DRO1.
Figure 5: Effect of DRO1 on the response to drought-induced stress.

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Gene Expression Omnibus

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Shimamoto (NAra Institute of Science and Technology, NAIST) and E.E. Hood (Arkansas State University) for kindly providing the pANDA vector and Agrobacterium (EHA101), respectively. Full-length cDNAs for use as controls in the quantitative RT-PCR experiments were provided by the Rice Genome Resource Center of NIAS. We thank N. Hattori, T. Tanaka, M. Yamanouchi, K. Matsubara, S. Mochizuki, N. Yokotani, T. Mizubayashi, T. Ando, N. Sentoku and A. Tagiri for technical support and advice on molecular analysis; T. Nishikawa, Y. Itai, M. Takimoto, E. Nakao, H. Oode, R. Matsushita and the staff of the technical support section of NIAS for technical assistance during field evaluation; M. Kondo, A. Oyanagi, T. Izawa, E. Yamamoto, T. Hoshino, J. Tohme, C.P. Martinez, N.T. Perea and A. Fernando for valuable discussion; and K. Shinozaki for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (QTL-4003 and RBS-2009).

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Author notes

  1. Jagadish Rane, Yuka Kitomi & Kazutoshi Okuno

    Present address: Present addresses: National Institute of Abiotic Stress Management, Malegaon, Baramati, India (J.R.), Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (Y.K.) and Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan (K. Okuno).,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences (NIAS), Tsukuba, Japan

    Yusaku Uga, Kazuhiko Sugimoto, Naho Hara, Kazuko Ono, Noriko Kanno, Haruhiko Inoue, Hinako Takehisa, Ritsuko Motoyama, Yoshiaki Nagamura, Jianzhong Wu, Takashi Matsumoto, Kazutoshi Okuno & Masahiro Yano

  2. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Cali, Colombia

    Satoshi Ogawa, Jagadish Rane & Manabu Ishitani

  3. Faculty of Science, University of Valle, Cali, Colombia

    Satoshi Ogawa

  4. Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Yuka Kitomi & Yoshiaki Inukai

  5. National Institute of Crop Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Toshiyuki Takai

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Contributions

Y.U. designed the experiments, cloned the DRO1 gene and wrote the manuscript. Y.U., K.S., Y.K., N.H., H.I., H.T. and R.M. performed molecular analysis of DRO1. Y.U., K. Ono and N.K. generated transgenic plants. J.W. and T.M. performed BAC analysis. Y.U., S.O., J.R. and T.T. performed field experiments. K.S., M.I., Y.I., Y.N., K. Okuno and M.Y. provided advice on the experiments.

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Correspondence to Yusaku Uga.

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Uga, Y., Sugimoto, K., Ogawa, S. et al. Control of root system architecture by DEEPER ROOTING 1 increases rice yield under drought conditions. Nat Genet 45, 1097–1102 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2725

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