Identification of rice <i>htd1</i> allelic mutant and its regulatory role in grain size.

Yuqi YANG; Zhining ZHANG; Jun LIU; Luyao TANG; Yiting WEI; Wen NONG; Lu YIN; Sanfeng LI; Penggen DUAN; Yuexing WANG; Yuchun RAO

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Identification of rice htd1 allelic mutant and its regulatory role in grain size.

Author: Yuqi YANG ¹ ; Zhining ZHANG ¹ ; Jun LIU ¹ ; Luyao TANG ¹ ; Yiting WEI ¹ ; Wen NONG ² ; Lu YIN ² ; Sanfeng LI ² ; Penggen DUAN ³ ; Yuexing WANG ² ; Yuchun RAO ¹
Author Information

1. College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, Zhejiang, China.
2. China National Center for Rice Improvement/State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou 310006, Zhejiang, China.
3. Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang, China.
Publication Type:Journal Article
Keywords: OsHTD1; grain size; rice (Oryza sativa); strigolactone
MeSH: Oryza/growth & development*; Mutation; Edible Grain/growth & development*; Alleles; Plant Proteins/genetics*; Dioxygenases/genetics*; Lactones/metabolism*; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; Genes, Plant; Gene Editing; CRISPR-Cas Systems; Phenotype
From: Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2025;41(7):2789-2802
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: Rice is the world's largest food crop, and its yield and quality are directly related to food security and human health. Grain size, as one of the important factors determining the rice yield, has been widely concerned by breeders and researchers for a long time. To decipher the regulatory mechanism of rice grain size, we obtained a multi-tiller, dwarf, and small-grain mutant htd1 by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) mutation from the Japonica rice cultivar 'Zhonghua 11' ('ZH11'). Genetic analysis indicated that the phenotype of htd1 was controlled by a single recessive gene. Using the mutation site map (Mutmap) method, we identified the candidate gene OsHTD1, which encoded a carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase involved in the biosynthesis of strigolactone (SL). The SL content in htd1 was significantly lower than that in 'ZH11'. Cytological analysis showed that the grain size of the mutant decreased due to the reductions in the length and width of glume cells. The function of htd1 was further verified by the CRISPR/cas9 gene editing technology. The plants with the gene knockout exhibited similar grain size to the mutant. In addition, gene expression analysis showed that the expression levels of multiple grain size-related genes in the mutant changed significantly, suggesting that HTD1 may interact with other genes regulating grain size. This study provides a new theoretical basis for research on the regulatory mechanism of rice grain size and potential genetic resources for breeding the rice cultivars with high yields.