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Over-expression of rice OsAGO7 gene induces upward curling of the leaf blade that enhanced erect-leaf habit

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Abstract

High-yield cultivars are characterized by erect leaf canopies that optimize photosynthesis and thus favor increased biomass. Upward curling of the leaf blade (called rolled leaf) can result in enhanced erect-leaf habit, increase erect duration and promote an overall erect leaf canopy. The rice mutant R05, induced through transferred DNA (T-DNA) insertion, had the rolled-leaf trait. The leaves in the wild type demonstrated natural drooping tendencies, resulting in decreasing leaf erection indices (LEIs) during senescence at the 20th day after flowering. Conversely, LEIs of the leaves in R05 remained high, even 20-day post-flowering. We applied T-DNA tagging and isolated a rolled-leaf gene from rice which, when over-expressed, could induce upward curling of the leaf blade. This gene encodes for a protein of 1,048 amino acids including the PAZ and PIWI conserved domains, belonging to the Argonaute (AGO) family. There are at least 18 members of the AGO family in rice. According to high-sequence conservation, the rolled-leaf gene in rice could be orthologous to the Arabidopsis ZIP/Ago7 gene, so we called it OsAGO7. These results provide a possible opportunity for implementing OsAGO7 gene in crop improvement.

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Abbreviations

AGO:

Argonaute

GUS:

β-Glucuronidase

LEI:

Leaf erection index

LRI:

Leaf rolling index

T-DNA:

Transferred DNA

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Meng-min Hong for valuable comments on the manuscript, Prof. Jia-mian Wei for help on the chlorophyll measurement and Lin-sheng An for plant care in the greenhouse. This work was supported by The National High Technology Research and Development Program of The People’s Republic of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Key Laboratory of Plant Molecular Genetics, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai , 200032, China

    ZhenYing Shi, Jiang Wang, XinShan Wan & JingLiu Zhang

  2. Crop Institute, Shanghai Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Shanghai, 201106, China

    GeZhi Shen & XinQi Wang

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  1. ZhenYing Shi
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  2. Jiang Wang
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  3. XinShan Wan
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  4. GeZhi Shen
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Correspondence to JingLiu Zhang.

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ZhenYing Shi and Jiang Wang contributed equally to this work.

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Shi, Z., Wang, J., Wan, X. et al. Over-expression of rice OsAGO7 gene induces upward curling of the leaf blade that enhanced erect-leaf habit. Planta 226, 99–108 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-006-0472-0

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