Publication Date:
2009-08-21
Description:
Living organisms must acquire new biological functions to adapt to changing and hostile environments. Deepwater rice has evolved and adapted to flooding by acquiring the ability to significantly elongate its internodes, which have hollow structures and function as snorkels to allow gas exchange with the atmosphere, and thus prevent drowning. Many physiological studies have shown that the phytohormones ethylene, gibberellin and abscisic acid are involved in this response, but the gene(s) responsible for this trait has not been identified. Here we show the molecular mechanism of deepwater response through the identification of the genes SNORKEL1 and SNORKEL2, which trigger deepwater response by encoding ethylene response factors involved in ethylene signalling. Under deepwater conditions, ethylene accumulates in the plant and induces expression of these two genes. The products of SNORKEL1 and SNORKEL2 then trigger remarkable internode elongation via gibberellin. We also demonstrate that the introduction of three quantitative trait loci from deepwater rice into non-deepwater rice enabled the latter to become deepwater rice. This discovery will contribute to rice breeding in lowland areas that are frequently flooded during the rainy season.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Hattori, Yoko -- Nagai, Keisuke -- Furukawa, Shizuka -- Song, Xian-Jun -- Kawano, Ritsuko -- Sakakibara, Hitoshi -- Wu, Jianzhong -- Matsumoto, Takashi -- Yoshimura, Atsushi -- Kitano, Hidemi -- Matsuoka, Makoto -- Mori, Hitoshi -- Ashikari, Motoyuki -- England -- Nature. 2009 Aug 20;460(7258):1026-30. doi: 10.1038/nature08258.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Bioscience and Biotechnology Center, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19693083" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Adaptation, Physiological/drug effects/genetics/*physiology
;
Breeding
;
Ethylenes/*metabolism/pharmacology
;
*Floods
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Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
;
Genes, Plant/genetics/physiology
;
Gibberellins/metabolism
;
Onions/cytology
;
Oryza/drug effects/genetics/*growth & development/*metabolism
;
Plant Growth Regulators/*metabolism/pharmacology
;
Plant Proteins/genetics/*metabolism
;
Quantitative Trait Loci
;
Signal Transduction
;
Water/metabolism
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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