Abstract
Wheat, an essential crop for global food security, is well adapted to a wide variety of soils. However, the gene networks shaping different root architectures remain poorly understood. We report here that dosage differences in a cluster of monocot-specific 12-OXOPHYTODIENOATE REDUCTASE genes from subfamily III (OPRIII) modulate key differences in wheat root architecture, which are associated with grain yield under water-limited conditions. Wheat plants with loss-of-function mutations in OPRIII show longer seminal roots, whereas increased OPRIII dosage or transgenic over-expression result in reduced seminal root growth, precocious development of lateral roots and increased jasmonic acid (JA and JA-Ile). Pharmacological inhibition of JA-biosynthesis abolishes root length differences, consistent with a JA-mediated mechanism. Transcriptome analyses of transgenic and wild-type lines show significant enriched JA-biosynthetic and reactive oxygen species (ROS) pathways, which parallel changes in ROS distribution. OPRIII genes provide a useful entry point to engineer root architecture in wheat and other cereals.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 539 |
Pages (from-to) | 539 |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Volume | 14 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:J.D. and T.F. acknowledge support from USA-Israel BARD grants US-5191-19C and US-5515-22C. J.D. also acknowledges support from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant 2022-68013-36439 (WheatCAP), and from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. G.G. acknowledges support from Vaadia-BARD fellowship number FI-585-2019. G.E.S.-M. acknowledges support from CONICET and the ANPCYT (PICT 2018-02159) Argentina. J.G. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 31972350. We thank the UC Riverside Metabolomics Core Facility for their help with the Jasmonic Acid determinations and the UC Davis transformation facility for the Fielder transgenic plants. We also thank Yanpeng Wang for his help with the transformation vectors; Rudi Appels for his help with the 1RS gene names in AK58; and Neelima Sinha and Kristina Zumstein for their assistance with the amplicon sequencing to detect induced CRISPR-Cas9 mutations.
Funding Information:
J.D. and T.F. acknowledge support from USA-Israel BARD grants US-5191-19C and US-5515-22C. J.D. also acknowledges support from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant 2022-68013-36439 (WheatCAP), and from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. G.G. acknowledges support from Vaadia-BARD fellowship number FI-585-2019. G.E.S.-M. acknowledges support from CONICET and the ANPCYT (PICT 2018-02159) Argentina. J.G. acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 31972350. We thank the UC Riverside Metabolomics Core Facility for their help with the Jasmonic Acid determinations and the UC Davis transformation facility for the Fielder transgenic plants. We also thank Yanpeng Wang for his help with the transformation vectors; Rudi Appels for his help with the 1RS gene names in AK58; and Neelima Sinha and Kristina Zumstein for their assistance with the amplicon sequencing to detect induced CRISPR-Cas9 mutations.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Chemistry (all)
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all)
- General
- Physics and Astronomy (all)