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Control of tillering in rice

Nature volume 422, pages 618–621 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Tillering in rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important agronomic trait for grain production, and also a model system for the study of branching in monocotyledonous plants. Rice tiller is a specialized grain-bearing branch that is formed on the unelongated basal internode and grows independently of the mother stem (culm) by means of its own adventitious roots1. Rice tillering occurs in a two-stage process: the formation of an axillary bud at each leaf axil and its subsequent outgrowth2. Although the morphology and histology2,3 and some mutants of rice tillering4 have been well described, the molecular mechanism of rice tillering remains to be elucidated. Here we report the isolation and characterization of MONOCULM 1 (MOC1), a gene that is important in the control of rice tillering. The moc1 mutant plants have only a main culm without any tillers owing to a defect in the formation of tiller buds. MOC1 encodes a putative GRAS family nuclear protein that is expressed mainly in the axillary buds and functions to initiate axillary buds and to promote their outgrowth.

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Figure 1: Phenotype and complementation of the moc1 mutant.
Figure 2: Molecular identification of MOC1.
Figure 3: Microscopic studies on rice tiller bud formation.
Figure 4: Promotion of MOC1 on tiller bud outgrowth and OSH1 and OsTB1 expression in wild-type and moc1 plants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Zuo, N.-H. Chua and X.-W. Deng for critical comments on the manuscript, B. Zhang for assistance in using the microscope, I. Takamure for providing rcn1–rcn5 mutants, the MAFF DNA Bank of Japan for providing RFLP probes and YAC clones, the Clemson University Genomic Institute for providing Nipponbare BAC library filters and clones, Y. Niwa for providing the CaMV35SΩ-sGFP (S65T)-NOS-3′ construct, and M. Matsuoka for the OSH1 cDNA clone. F.H. is a visiting scientist from the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan. This work was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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  1. Xueyong Li, Qian Qian and Bin Han: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101, Beijing, China

    Xueyong Li, Zhiming Fu, Yonghong Wang, Guosheng Xiong, Xiaoqun Wang, Xinfang Liu & Jiayang Li

  2. China National Rice Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310006, Zhejiang, China

    Qian Qian, Dali Zeng, Sheng Teng & Fujimoto Hiroshi

  3. China Agricultural University, 100094, Beijing, China

    Ming Yuan

  4. Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Da Luo

  5. National Center for Gene Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200233, China

    Bin Han

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Correspondence to Jiayang Li.

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Li, X., Qian, Q., Fu, Z. et al. Control of tillering in rice. Nature 422, 618–621 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01518

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