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Rice domestication: An imperfect African solution

Nature Plants volume 3, Article number: 17083 (2017) Cite this article

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SHATTERING 4 is a key rice domestication gene. A non-synonymous mutation of this gene was found to be selected during Asian rice domestication as it confers non-shattering. Now, a nonsense mutation of SHATTERING 4 is shown to simultaneously result in non-shattering and small grain size during the independent domestication of African rice.

Crop domestication is an unrepeatable miracle in human history that underpins modern civilization. During domestication, humans selected larger grain size and loss of shattering to increase yield and facilitate harvest. As a consequence, cultivars typically have larger grains and reduced shattering habit compared with their wild relatives. However, African cultivated rice appears to be an exception, as it bears smaller grains than its progenitor. In the present issue of Nature Plants, Wu et al. found that a nonsense mutation within the gene GRAIN LENGTH 4 (GL4), the orthologue of SHATTERING 4 (SH4), simultaneously confers non-shattering and smaller grain size in African cultivated rice1.

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Figure 1: Mutations at the GL4/SH4 locus contribute to the parallel domestication of African and Asian rice.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Haijun Liu & Jianbing Yan

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  1. Haijun Liu
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  2. Jianbing Yan
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Correspondence to Haijun Liu or Jianbing Yan.

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Liu, H., Yan, J. Rice domestication: An imperfect African solution. Nature Plants 3, 17083 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.83

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