Biotech Updates

Chinese Scientists Identify Molecular Mechanism Behind Grain Length of Rice

July 15, 2015

A team of scientists from the China National Rice Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has identified the molecular design of the grain size and the breeding of high-yield and high-quality novel varieties of rice.

The study of American long-grain japonica rice varieties shows that Chromosome 7 (GL7) encodes a protein similar to Arabidopsis proteins which regulate longitudinal cell elongation. Further study showed that tandem duplication of a 17.1-kb segment in the GL7 locus leads to upregulation of GL7 and downregulation of its nearby negative regulator in gene expression levels, resulting in an increase in grain length and improvement of grain appearance quality, due to decreased chalkiness and chalky kernel percentage.

For more information, read the news release at the website of the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China, or read the abstract of the paper published in Nature Genetics.