Chinese researchers reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature Genetics that they have found a gene that can simultaneously improve rice yield and quality, and that it can be applied in the future to breeding new varieties of super hybrid rice.

The report states that for a long time the main goal of rice breeding in China has been to ensure increased yield, while high-yield rice is sometimes of poorer quality. How to solve the problem of "high yield without high quality, high quality without high yield" has long been a difficult challenge facing rice breeding.

A team led by researcher Fu Xiangdong of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully isolated and cloned an important gene, GW7, that controls rice grain shape and improves rice quality from the high-quality rice male sterile line "Taifeng A."

A rice male sterile line refers to a special type of rice in which the male organs of the flowers develop abnormally and the pollen is sterile. However, the female organs of the flowers of this rice develop normally, can accept normal pollen for fertilization and set seed, and thus it is convenient for mass cultivation of rice hybrid varieties. The GW7 gene discovered by Chinese researchers can, by changing the cell division pattern, make rice grains more slender and effectively reduce the chalkiness rate and chalkiness area, thereby improving the quality of rice in appearance, taste and other aspects. Chalkiness is the opaque part of the rice endosperm, in which starch accumulation in the endosperm cells is insufficient. Rice with high chalkiness becomes fluffy and hollow after cooking, seriously affecting quality.

Fu Xiangdong told reporters that, combined with previous research results, aggregating and applying the excellent allelic variations of the relevant genes into high-yield indica rice in China can significantly improve rice quality while also increasing yield.

The report states that the cloning of the GW7 gene directly provides a new gene of important application value for molecular breeding of high-yield and high-quality rice, and also provides new clues for revealing the molecular secrets of coordinated genetic improvement of rice quality and yield.

?

?