A Tos17 transposon insertion in OsCesA9 causes brittle culm in rice

Hongzheng Sun; Jiajun Sun; Zeke Yuan; Fuhao Li; Xinrong Li; Junzhou Li; Yanxiu Du; Fengqing Wang

doi:10.1016/j.gene.2023.147818

A Tos17 transposon insertion in OsCesA9 causes brittle culm in rice

Gene. 2024 Jan 10:890:147818. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2023.147818. Epub 2023 Sep 20.

Authors

Hongzheng Sun¹, Jiajun Sun¹, Zeke Yuan¹, Fuhao Li¹, Xinrong Li¹, Junzhou Li¹, Yanxiu Du¹, Fengqing Wang²

Affiliations

¹ College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450046, PR China.
² College of Agronomy, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450046, PR China. Electronic address: fqwang@henau.edu.cn.

PMID: 37739196
DOI: 10.1016/j.gene.2023.147818

Abstract

The mechanical strength of rice stalks plays an important role in rice growth and development. In this study, the brittle culm mutant bc26 was identified from a tissue culture-derived line of the japonica rice cultivar 'ZH15'. bc26 plants showed fragile leaves and stalks and reduced plant height and spike number compared with wild-type 'ZH15'. Analysis of cell wall components revealed that the cellulose content of stems, leaves, roots and spikes of bc26 plants was significantly lower than that of the wild type, while the hemicellulose content in these tissues of bc26 plants was significantly higher than that of the wild type. Further sequencing using a mixed pool bulked segregant analysis sequencing (BSA-Seq) of brittle plants from the F₂ populations localized the bc26 gene to chromosome 9, and a Tos17 transposon insertion in the bc6 gene near the highest SNP-index point was associated with a loss of gene function. Therefore, the bc26 gene was tentatively identified as a new allele of the Bc6 gene, resulting in the brittle culm trait caused by the insertion of the Tos17 transposon.

Keywords: BSA-Seq; Brittle culm; Cell wall; Resequencing; Rice.