Abstract
Key message
Purine permease PUP11 is essential for rice seed development, regulates the seed setting rate, and influences the cytokinin content, sugar transport, and starch biosynthesis during grain development.
Abstract
The distribution of cytokinins in plant tissues determines plant growth and development and is regulated by several cytokinin transporters, including purine permease (PUP). Thirteen PUP genes have been identified within the rice genome; however, the functions of most of these genes remain poorly understood. We found that pup11 mutants showed extremely low seed setting rates and a unique filled seed distribution. Moreover, seed formation arrest in these mutants was associated with the disappearance of accumulated starch 10 days after flowering. PUP11 has two major transcripts with different expression patterns and subcellular locations, and further studies revealed that they have redundant positive roles in regulating the seed setting rate. We also found that type-A Response Regulator (RR) genes were upregulated in the developing grains of the pup11 mutant compared with those in the wild type. The results also showed that PUP11 altered the expression of several sucrose transporters and significantly upregulated certain starch biosynthesis genes. In summary, our results indicate that PUP11 influences the rice seed setting rate by regulating sucrose transport and starch accumulation during grain filling. This research provides new insights into the relationship between cytokinins and seed development, which may help improve cereal yield.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Jiankang Zhu and Caixia Gao for providing the vectors of the CRISPR-Cas9 system. We also thank Biogle and Biorun genome editing center for producing transgenic rice.
Funding
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grants no BK20231470).
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C.D. and Y.D. conceived the original screening and research plans; C.R., R.Z., Y.L., Z.C., Z.L., and C.D. performed the experiments and analyzed the data; C.R. and C.D. wrote the article with contributions of all the authors; C.D. agrees to serve as the author responsible for contact and ensures communication.
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Communicated by Andrew Leigh Eamens.
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Rong, C., Zhang, R., Liu, Y. et al. Purine permease (PUP) family gene PUP11 positively regulates the rice seed setting rate by influencing seed development. Plant Cell Rep 43, 112 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-024-03193-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-024-03193-z