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Early heading 7 interacts with DTH8, and regulates flowering time in rice

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Abstract

Key message

EH7/Ghd7 interacts with DTH8, and regulates heading date by controlling the expression of Ehd1 in rice.

Abstract

Heading date, or flowering time, an important agronomic trait, influences regional adaptability and yield of crops. Many genes related to heading date in rice have been identified, and a preliminary regulatory network has been established, but the relationships between proteins involved are poorly understood. We identified a flowering suppressor EH7 (Early heading 7) that represses flowering under long-day (LD) conditions. The eh7 allele caused earlier heading, shorter plant height and less grain per main panicle than did the wild type (WT), but the tiller number and 1000-grain weight were not significantly affected under natural long-day conditions. Biochemical assays showed that EH7 interacts with DTH8. Quantitative PCR showed that EH7 inhibited heading date by downregulating the expression of Ehd1, Hd3a and RFT1. We propose that EH7 interacts with DTH8 to control flowering time by regulating the expression of Ehd1, Hd3a and RFT1.

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Abbreviations

NLD:

Natural long-day conditions

NSD:

Natural short-day conditions

CLD:

Controlled long-day conditions

CSD:

Controlled short-day conditions

UBQ:

Ubiquitin

SAM:

Shoot apical meristem

WT:

Wild type

OE:

Overexpression

SNP:

Single nucleotide polymorphism

EH7:

Early heading 7

Hd1:

Heading date 1

Ghd7:

Grain number, plant height and heading date 7

DTH8:

Days to heading on chromosome 8

Hd3a:

Heading date 3a

RFT1:

Rice flowering locus T 1

Ehd1:

Early heading date 1

dCAPS:

Derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence

AD:

Activating domain

BD:

Binding domain

SD:

Synthetic dropout

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFD0100501), the National Natural Science Foundation (31771764 and 31601378) and the Jiangsu Science and Technology Development Program (BE2017368). This research was also supported by the Key Laboratory of Biology, Genetics and Breeding of Japonica Rice in Mid-lower Yangtze River, Ministry of Agriculture of China, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Modern Crop Production.

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  1. Maohong Cai, Saihua Chen and Mingming Wu contributed equally to this article.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Key Laboratory for Crop Genetics and Germplasm Enhancement, Jiangsu Plant Gene Engineering Research Center, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, 210095, China

    Maohong Cai, Saihua Chen, Mingming Wu, Tianhui Zheng, Liang Zhou, Huan Zhang, Jiachang Wang, Xinyang Xu, Juntao Chai, Ling Jiang & Jianmin Wan

  2. National Key Facility for Crop Gene Resources and Genetic Improvement, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Chaonan Li, Yulong Ren, Xiuping Guo, Xin Zhang, Cailin Lei, Zhijun Cheng, Jie Wang, Huqu Zhai, Haiyang Wang, Shanshan Zhu & Jianmin Wan

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  1. Maohong Cai
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Contributions

MHC, SSZ, SHC and JMW managed and organized the project; MHC, SHC and SSZ designed the experiments and led the data analysis; MHC, MMW performed most of the experiments with help from THZ, LZ, XYX, CNL, HZ, JCW, JTC, YLR, XPG, XZ, CLL, ZJC, LJ, HQZ, HYW and JMW; MHC and SSZ designed and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shanshan Zhu or Jianmin Wan.

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Communicated by Xian Sheng Zhang.

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Cai, M., Chen, S., Wu, M. et al. Early heading 7 interacts with DTH8, and regulates flowering time in rice. Plant Cell Rep 38, 521–532 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-019-02380-7

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