Arabidopsis De-etiolated 1 （DET1） is one of the key repressors that maintain the etiolated state of seedlings in darkness. The plant hormone gibberellic acid （GA） also participates in this process, and plants deficient in GA synthesis or signaling show a partially de.etiolated phenotype in darkness. However, how DET1 and the GA pathway work in concert in repressing photomorphogenesis remains largely unknown. In this study, we found that the abundance of DELLA proteins in detl-1 was increased in comparison with that in the wildtype plants. Mutation in DET1 changed the sensitivity of hypocotyl elongation of mutant seedlings to GA and paclobutrazol （PAC）, an inhibitor of GA synthesis. However, we did not find obvious differences between detl-1 and wild-type plants with regard to the bioactive GA content or the GA signaling upstream of DELLAs. Genetic data showed that removal of several DELLA proteins suppressed the detl-1 mutant phenotype more obviously than GA treatment, indicating that DET1 can regulate DELLA proteins via some other mechanisms. In addition, a large-scale transcriptomic analysis revealed that DET1 and DELLAs play antagonistic roles in regulating expression of photosynthetic and cell elongation-related genes in etiolated seedlings. Taken together, our results show that DET1 represses photomorphogenesis in darkness in part by reducing the abundance of DELLA proteins.
Kunlun LiZhaoxu GaoHang HeWilliam TerzaghiLiu-Min FanXing Wang DengHaodong Chen
Heterosis,one of the most important biological phenomena, refers to the phenotypic superiority of a hybrid over its genetically diverse parents with respect to many traits such as biomass,growth rate and yield.Despite its successful application in breeding and agronomic production of many crop and animal varieties,the molecular basis of heterosis remains elusive.The classic genetic explanations for heterosis centered on three hypotheses：dominance（Davenport,1908;Bruce,
Accumulating evidence suggests that non-coding RNAs （ncRNAs） are both widespread and functionally important in many eukaryotic organisms. In this study, we employed a special size fractionation and cDNA library construction method followed by 454 deep sequencing to systematically profile rice intermediate-size ncRNAs. Our analysis resulted in the identification of 1349 ncRNAs in total, including 754 novel ncRNAs of an unknown functional category. Chromosome distribution of all identified ncRNAs showed no strand bias, and displayed a pattern similar to that observed in protein-coding genes with few chromosome dependencies. More than half of the ncRNAs were centered around the plus-strand of the 5＇ and 3＇ termini of the coding regions. The majority of the novel ncRNAs were rice specific, while 78% of the small nucleolar RNAs （snoRNAs） were conserved. Tandem duplication drove the expansion of over half of the snoRNA gene families. Furthermore, 90% of the snoRNA candidates were shown to produce small RNAs between 20-30 nt, 80% of which were associated with ARGONAUT proteins generally, and AGOlb in particular. Overall, our findings provide a comprehensive view of an intermediate-size non-coding transcriptome in a monocot species, which will serve as a useful platform for an in-depth analysis of ncRNA functions.
Ting-Ting LiuDanmeng ZhuWei ChenWei DengHang HeGuangming HeBaoyan BaiYijun QiRunsheng ChenXing Wang Deng
Understanding genetic characteristics in rice populations will facilitate exploring evolutionary mechanisms and gene cloning. Numerous molecular markers have been utilized in linkage map construction and quantitative trait locus （QTL） mappings. However, segregation-distorted markers were rarely considered, which prevented understanding genetic characteristics in many populations. In this study, we designed a 384-marker GoldenGate SNP array to genotype 283 recombination inbred lines （RILs） derived from 93-11 and Nipponbare Oryza sativa crosses. Using 294 markers that were highly polymorpbic between parents, a linkage map with a total genetic distance of 1,583.2 cM was constructed, including 231 segregation-distorted mark- ers. This linkage map was consistent with maps generated by other methods in previous studies. In total, 85 significant quanti- tative trait loci （QTLs） with phenotypic variation explained （PVE） values〉5% were identified. Among them, 34 QTLs were overlapped with reported genes/QTLs relevant to corresponding traits, and 17 QTLs were overlapped with reported sterili- ty-related genes/QTLs. Our study provides evidence that segregation-distorted markers can be used in linkage map construc- tion and QTL mapping. Moreover, genetic information resulting from this study will help us to understand recombination events and segregation distortion. Furthermore, this study will facilitate gene cloning and understanding mechanism of in- ter-subspecies hybrid sterility and correlations with important agronomic traits in rice.
