title: Association between seed dormancy and pericarp color is controlled by a pleiotropic gene that regulates abscisic acid and flavonoid synthesis in weedy red rice.
abstract: Seed dormancy has been associated with red grain color in cereal crops for a century. The association was linked to qSD7-1/qPC7, a cluster of quantitative trait loci for seed dormancy/pericarp color in weedy red rice. This research delimited qSD7-1/qPC7 to the Os07g11020 or Rc locus encoding a basic helix-loop-helix family transcription factor by intragenic recombinants and provided unambiguous evidence that the association arises from pleiotropy. The pleiotropic gene expressed in early developing seeds promoted expression of key genes for biosynthesis of abscisic acid (ABA), resulting in an increase in accumulation of the dormancy-inducing hormone; activated a conserved network of eight genes for flavonoid biosynthesis to produce the pigments in the lower epidermal cells of the pericarp tissue; and enhanced seed weight. Thus, the pleiotropic locus most likely controls the dormancy and pigment traits by regulating ABA and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways, respectively. The dormancy effect could be eliminated by a heat treatment, but could not be completely overcome by gibberellic acid or physical removal of the seed maternal tissues. The dormancy-enhancing alleles differentiated into two groups basically associated with tropical and temperate ecotypes of weedy rice. Of the pleiotropic effects, seed dormancy could contribute most to the weed adaptation. Pleiotropy prevents the use of the dormancy gene to improve resistance of white pericarp cultivars against pre-harvest sprouting through conventional breeding approaches.
authors.affiliation: Plant Science Department, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota 57007, USA. xingyou.gu@sdstate.edu
authors.forename: Xing-You
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Foley
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Horvath
authors.forename: James V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Jiuhuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Lihua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Chase R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Mowry
authors.forename: Heng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Jeffrey C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Suttle
authors.forename: Koh-ichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kadowaki
authors.forename: Zongxiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000040:Abscisic Acid / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003116:Color; D005419:Flavonoids / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D017343:Genes, Plant; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012275:Oryza / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012639:Seeds / Q000502:physiology*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D005419:Flavonoids; D010940:Plant Proteins; D000040:Abscisic Acid