Autophagy mediates grain yield and nitrogen stress resistance by modulating nitrogen remobilization in rice

PLoS One. 2021 Jan 14;16(1):e0244996. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244996. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Autophagy, a conserved cellular process in eukaryotes, has evolved to a sophisticated process to dispose of intracellular constituents and plays important roles in plant development, metabolism, and efficient nutrients remobilization under suboptimal nutrients conditions. Here, we show that OsATG8b, an AUTOPHAGY-RELATED8 (ATG8) gene in rice, was highly induced by nitrogen (N) starvation. Elevated expression of OsATG8b significantly increased ATG8 lipidation, autophagic flux, and grain yield in rice under both sufficient and deficient N conditions. Overexpressing of OsATG8b could greatly increase the activities of enzymes related to N metabolism. Intriguingly, the 15N-labeling assay further revealed that more N was remobilized to seeds in OsATG8b-overexpressing rice, which significantly increased the N remobilization efficiency (NRE), N harvest index, N utilization efficiency (NUE), and N uptake efficiency (NUpE). Conversely, the osatg8b knock-out mutants had the opposite results on these characters. The substantial transcriptional changes of the overexpressed transgenic lines indicated the presence of complex signaling to developmental, metabolic process, and hormone, etc. Excitingly, the transgenic rice under different backgrounds all similarly be boosted in yield and NUE with OsATG8b overexpression. This work provides an excellent candidate gene for improving N remobilization, utilization, and yield in crops simultaneously.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Autophagy / physiology*
  • Edible Grain / genetics
  • Edible Grain / metabolism
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
  • Nitrogen / metabolism*
  • Nitrosative Stress / physiology*
  • Oryza / genetics
  • Oryza / metabolism*
  • Plants, Genetically Modified

Substances

  • Nitrogen

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant number 2018YFD0200200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 31401298) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant number 2018YFD0300300).