Allelic variations of the Wx locus in cultivated rice and their use in the development of hybrid rice in China

PLoS One. 2020 May 5;15(5):e0232279. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232279. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

To make better use of global germplasm resources for improving the eating quality of hybrid rice, using the resequencing data from the 3,000 rice genomes project (3K RGP), the allelic variations of the rice Wx locus were analysed. With the exception of five rare alleles discovered for the first time in our study, most of these alleles were known alleles of Wx. Furthermore, a set of Kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) markers based on these Wx alleles have been developed, and thirty-six main parents of hybrid rice from 1976 to 2018 were selected for Wx genotyping. The results showed that only three Wx alleles existed in the main parents of hybrids, and the allelic combination of the hybrids changed from Wxa/Wxb and Wxlv/Wxb to Wxb/Wxb with the development of hybrid rice. Wxb is widely used in the male parents of hybrid rice. Wxa and Wxlv were used in the female parents of early hybrid rice, and they were gradually replaced by Wxb. In the future, more favourable Wx alleles from cultivated rice should be identified, introduced, and effectively used to improve hybrid rice quality.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alleles*
  • China
  • Genetic Loci*
  • Genetic Variation*
  • Haplotypes
  • Hybridization, Genetic
  • Oryza / genetics*
  • Plant Breeding* / methods
  • Plant Proteins / genetics

Substances

  • Plant Proteins

Grants and funding

This research was financially supported by funds from the Pre-cultivation Project of National Biological Seed Industry Technology Innovation Center (2018XK2005), the Key Project of Hunan Province (2018NK1020-1), National Natural Science Foundation of China U19A2032, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China 31171526. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.