Control of Root System Architecture by DEEPER ROOTING 1 Increases Rice Yield Under Drought Conditions

Overview

Journal Nat Genet

Specialty Genetics

Date 2013 Aug 6

PMID 23913002

Citations 501

Authors

Yusaku Uga

Kazuhiko Sugimoto

Satoshi Ogawa

Jagadish Rane

Manabu Ishitani

Naho Hara

Yuka Kitomi

Yoshiaki Inukai

Kazuko Ono

Noriko Kanno

Haruhiko Inoue

Hinako Takehisa

Ritsuko Motoyama

Yoshiaki Nagamura

Jianzhong Wu

Takashi Matsumoto

Toshiyuki Takai

Kazutoshi Okuno

Masahiro Yano

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The genetic improvement of drought resistance is essential for stable and adequate crop production in drought-prone areas. Here we demonstrate that alteration of root system architecture improves drought avoidance through the cloning and characterization of DEEPER ROOTING 1 (DRO1), a rice quantitative trait locus controlling root growth angle. DRO1 is negatively regulated by auxin and is involved in cell elongation in the root tip that causes asymmetric root growth and downward bending of the root in response to gravity. Higher expression of DRO1 increases the root growth angle, whereby roots grow in a more downward direction. Introducing DRO1 into a shallow-rooting rice cultivar by backcrossing enabled the resulting line to avoid drought by increasing deep rooting, which maintained high yield performance under drought conditions relative to the recipient cultivar. Our experiments suggest that control of root system architecture will contribute to drought avoidance in crops.

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