A route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice.

Cultivated rice varieties are all diploid, and polyploidization of rice has long been desired because of its advantages in genome buffering, vigorousness, and environmental robustness. However, a workable route remains elusive. Here, we describe a practical strategy, namely de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice. By screening allotetraploid wild rice inventory, we identified one genotype of Oryza alta (CCDD), polyploid rice 1 (PPR1), and established two important resources for its de novo domestication: (1) an efficient tissue culture, transformation, and genome editing system and (2) a high-quality genome assembly discriminated into two subgenomes of 12 chromosomes apiece. With these resources, we show that six agronomically important traits could be rapidly improved by editing O. alta homologs of the genes controlling these traits in diploid rice. Our results demonstrate the possibility that de novo domesticated allotetraploid rice can be developed into a new staple cereal to strengthen world food security.

Citation

Yu, H., Lin, T., Meng, X., Du, H., Zhang, J., Liu, G., … Li, J. (2021). A route to de novo domestication of wild allotetraploid rice. Cell. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2021.01.013

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Yaoguang Liu (South China Agricultural University) for providing pYLCRISPR/Cas9Pubi-H vector. The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31788103), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA24030504 and XDA24040201), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0101800), and the National Transgenic Science and Technology Program of China (2019ZX08010-003 and 2019ZX08010-001).