On October 30, the research team led by professor Lian Xingming at National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement of HZAU published a paper titled "Genetic Basis of Rice Ionomic Variation Revealed by Genome-wide Association Studies" in Plant Cell. This research revealed the genetic basis of natural variation of rice ionic group through whole-genome association analysis.
Plants require at least 14 essential mineral nutrients and several beneficial elements for growth, development and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Meanwhile, plants also take up non-essential and toxic elements from the soil, which may cause phytotoxicity or enter the food chain, posing a risk to human health. Since rice contains both essential micronutrients and toxic elements, it is of fundamental importance to enhance the accumulation of essential micronutrients and reduce the concentrations of potentially toxic elements in rice grain for people who take rice as a staple food. Previous studies have shown that different rice varieties differ greatly in mineral accumulation, while the genetic basis underlying the variations in the mineral composition, the ionome, in rice remains largely unknown. Therefore, systematic exploration of genetic loci will contribute to genetic improvement of nutrient quality of rice.
The team described a comprehensive study of the genetic architecture of the variation in rice ionome performed using genome-wide association studies(GWAS) of the concentrations of 17 mineral elements in rice grain from a diverse panel of 529 accessions. They identified 72 loci associated with natural ionomic variations, including 32 that are common across locations and 40 that are common within a single location. They identified candidate genes for 42 loci and provided evidence for the causal nature of three genes, including OsHKT1;5, OsMOT1;1 and Ghd7(the sodium transporter gene OsHKT1;5 for sodium, Os-MOLYBDATE TRANSPORTER1;1 for molybdenum and Grain Number, Plant Height, and Heading Date 7 for nitrogen). This study provided crucial insights into the genetic basis of ionomic variations in rice and served as an important foundation for further studies on the genetic and molecular mechanism controlling the rice ionome.
Yang Meng and Lv Kai, post doctorate and doctoral candidate in this team were the first authors of the paper, and professor Lian Xingming was the corresponding author. This research was sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China, 863 program(National High-tech R&D Program) and public welfare industry (agriculture).
Translated by Chen Xiao
Supervised by Guo Xiaoyan
Source：http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2018/1101/52991.shtml
