Development of the "Third-Generation" Hybrid Rice in China / 基因组蛋白质组与生物信息学报·英文版

Rice is a major cereal crop for China. The development of the "three-line" hybrid rice system based on cytoplasmic male sterility in the 1970s (first-generation) and the "two-line" hybrid rice system based on photoperiod- and thermo-sensitive genic male-sterile lines (second-generation) in the 1980s has contributed significantly to rice yield increase and food security in China. Here we describe the development and implementation of the "third-generation" hybrid rice breeding system that is based on a transgenic approach to propagate and utilize stable recessive nuclear male sterile lines, and as such, the male sterile line and hybrid rice produced using such a system is non-transgenic. Such a system should overcome the intrinsic problems of the "first-generation" and "second-generation" hybrid rice systems and hold great promise to further boost production of hybrid rice and other crops.

UV-B-induced photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis

Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) is a relatively minor component of sunlight, but can induce stress-related physiological processes or UV-B-specific photomorphogenic responses in plants. In the last decade, significant progress has been made in understanding the UV-B photomorphogenic pathway, including identification of the key components in the pathway, molecular characterization of UV-B photoreceptor and perception mechanism, and elucidation of the signal transduction mechanisms from the photoactivated UV-B receptor to downstream gene expression. This review summarizes the key players identified to date in the UV-B photomorphogenic pathway and their roles in mediating UV-B signal transduction.

Genomic basis for light control of plant development

Light is one of the key environmental signals regulating plant growth and development. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms by which light controls plant development has long been of great interest to plant biologists. Traditional genetic and molecular approaches have successfully identified key regulatory factors in light signaling, but recent genomic studies have revealed massive reprogramming of plant transcriptomes by light, identified binding sites across the entire genome of several pivotal transcription factors in light signaling, and discovered the involvement of epigenetic regulation in light-regulated gene expression. This review summarizes the key genomic work conducted in the last decade which provides new insights into light control of plant development.