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Inducible overexpression of Ideal Plant Architecture1 improves both yield and disease resistance in rice

Nature Plants volume 5, pages 389–400 (2019)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 16 May 2019

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Abstract

Breeding crops with resistance is an efficient way to control diseases. However, increased resistance often has a fitness penalty. Thus, simultaneously increasing disease resistance and yield potential is a challenge in crop breeding. In this study, we found that downregulation of microRNA-156 (miR-156) and overexpression of Ideal Plant Architecture1 (IPA1) and OsSPL7, two target genes of miR-156, enhanced disease resistance against bacterial blight caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), but reduced rice yield. We discovered that gibberellin signalling might be partially responsible for the disease resistance and developmental defects in IPA1 overexpressors. We then generated transgenic rice plants expressing IPA1 with the pathogen-inducible promoter of OsHEN1; these plants had both enhanced disease resistance and enhanced yield-related traits. Thus, we have identified miR-156–IPA1 as a novel regulator of the crosstalk between growth and defence, and we have established a new strategy for obtaining both high disease resistance and high yield.

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Fig. 1: mi-R156 negatively regulates disease resistance.
Fig. 2: IPA1 and OsSPL7 overexpressors enhance disease resistance.
Fig. 3: IPA1 and OsSPL7 physically interact with SLR1.
Fig. 4: IPA1 and OsSPL7 reduce GA-mediated disease susceptibility by stabilizing SLR1.
Fig. 5: IPA1-mediated resistance partially depends on GA metabolism.
Fig. 6: Enhancement of disease resistance by IPA1 partially depends on SLR1.
Fig. 7: Inducible overexpression of IPA1 increases disease resistance.
Fig. 8: HIP transgenic rice exhibits high-yield potential.

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Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its Supplementary Information files).

Change history

  • 16 May 2019

    In the Supplementary Information file originally published with this Article, the authors mistakenly omitted accompanying legends for Supplementary Figures 1–15; this has now been amended.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0100600), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu (BK20170027 and BK20150659), the National Key Transformation Program (2016ZX08001002), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (KYZ201503, KJJQ201801 and KYZ201812), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31671340), the Innovative Project of State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement (ZZ2017009), and Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production to D.-L.Y.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Mingming Liu, Zhenying Shi.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China

    Mingming Liu, Xiaohan Zhang, Mingxuan Wang, Kezhi Zheng, Cuiru Di & Dong-Lei Yang

  2. Key Laboratory of Insect Developmental and Evolutionary Biology, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Zhenying Shi

  3. Joint International Research Laboratory of Agriculture and Agri-Product Safety, The Ministry of Education of China, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China

    Lin Zhang

  4. National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China

    Jiyun Liu & Zuhua He

  5. State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, China

    Xingming Hu & Qian Qian

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Contributions

M.L. conducted most of the experiments. Z.S. generated the MIM156, miR-156-OE and OsSPL7-OE transgenic plants. X.Z. and M.W. contributed to disease analysis. L.Z. generated the IPA1-OE transgenic rice plants. K.Z. and J.L. characterized the morphological phenotypes. C.D. generated the SLR1 antibody. X.H., Q.Q. and Z.H. contributed analysis reagents. D.-L.Y. designed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the data and contributed to the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dong-Lei Yang.

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Competing interests

Based on the results in this study, the authors have applied for patents (application no. 201811001480.8 and 201811002033.4).

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Journal peer review information: Nature Plants thanks Beat Keller and Mingliang Xu for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Liu, M., Shi, Z., Zhang, X. et al. Inducible overexpression of Ideal Plant Architecture1 improves both yield and disease resistance in rice. Nat. Plants 5, 389–400 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-019-0383-2

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