Clock component OsPRR59 delays heading date by repressing transcription of Ehd3 in rice

Heading date(or flowering time),an important agronomic trait in crop species,is closely associated with regional adaptation and yield.Members of the Pseudo-Response Regulator(PRR)family play key roles in regulating flowering.However,their role and molecular mechanism controlling heading date in rice is not very clear.Here,we identified rice OsPRR protein,OsPRR59,which delayed heading under longday conditions.OsPRR59 positively regulates yield by affecting plant height,secondary branches number per panicle,grain number per panicle,seed setting rate,and grain weight per plant.OsPRR59 is expressed in most tissues and its protein is localized to the nucleus.We also found that OsPRR59 directly binds to the promoter of Ehd3 to inhibit its expression.Compared with the WT,osprr59 ehd3 showed a significantly delayed heading phenotype,as did the ehd3 mutant.This was opposite to the phenotype of the osprr59 mutant,confirming that Ehd3 acted downstream of OsPRR59 in regulating rice flowering.Our results identified a direct regulator of Ehd3,and revealed a novel molecular mechanism of clock component OsPRR proteins in regulating heading date and provide a new genetic resource for fine-tuning heading date in rice.

Genome-editing of a circadian clock gene TaPRR95 facilitates wheat peduncle growth and heading date

Plant height and heading date are important agronomic traits in wheat(Triticum aestivum L.)that affect final grain yield.In wheat,knowledge of pseudo-response regulator(PRR)genes on agronomic traits is limited.Here,we identify a wheat TaPRR95 gene by genome-wide association studies to be associated with plant height.Triple allele mutant plants produced by CRISPR/Cas9 show increased plant height,particularly the peduncle,with an earlier heading date.The longer peduncle is mainly caused by the increased cell elon-gation at its upper section,whilst the early heading date is accompanied by elevated expression of flow-ering genes,such as TaFT and TacO1.A peduncle-specific transcriptome analysis reveals up-regulated photosynthesis genes and down-regulated IAAVAux genes for auxin signaling inpr95abad plants that may act as a regulatory mechanism to promote robust plant growth.A haplotype analysis identifies a TaPRR95-B haplotype(Hap2)to be closely associated with reduced plant height and increased thousand-grain weight.Moreover,the Hap2 frequency is higher in cultivars than that in landraces,suggesting the artifi-cial selection on the allele during wheat breeding.These findings suggest that TaPRR95 is a regulator for plant height and heading date,thereby providing an important target for wheat yield improvement.

Circadian Clock Genes Universally Control Key Agricultural Traits

Circadian clocks are endogenous timers that enable plants to synchronize biological processes with daily and seasonal environmental conditions in order to allocate resources during the most beneficial times of day and year. The circadian clock regulates a number of central plant activities, including growth, develop- ment, and reproduction, primarily through controlling a substantial proportion of transcriptional activity and protein function. This review examines the roles that alleles of circadian clock genes have played in domestication and improvement of crop plants. The focus here is on three groups of circadian clock genes essential to clock function in Arabidopsis thaliana： PSEUDO-RESPONSE REGULATORs, GIGANTEA, and the evening complex genes EARL Y FLOWERING 3, EARLY FLOWERING 4, and LUX ARRHYTHMO. Homol- ogous genes from each group underlie quantitative trait loci that have beneficial influences on key agricul- tural traits, especially flowering time but also yield, biomass, and biennial growth habit. Emerging insights into circadian clock regulation of other fundamental plant processes, including responses to abiotic and biotic stresses, are discussed to highlight promising avenues for further crop improvement.