Development of a cis-sequence search method that can modify only target traits in rice

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K22306
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 39:Agricultural and environmental biology and related fields
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: Inukai Yoshiaki 名古屋大学, 農学国際教育研究センター, 教授 (20377790)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: イネ / 標的シス配列 / 遺伝子発現制御 / プロモーター領域

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Comprehensive expression level analysis was performed on leaves and roots of Japonica and Indica cultivars, and genes that were not expressed in leaves but showed significant differences in roots between the two cultivars were selected. Next, as a result of detecting the chromosomal regions that control the expression levels of these genes by eQTL analysis, the eQTL (eq.4) detected on chromosome 4 was found to be caused by sequence differences between the two cultivars in the promoter region of the eq.4 flanking gene and three types of cis-sequences that exist only in Japanese cultivars were found. If the identification of cis-sequences that enable organ-specific control of expression level progresses in this way, it will be possible to overcome the pleiotropic expression of mutated genes, which has been a problem so far.

Free Research Field

植物遺伝育種学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

これまでにイネ根系の発育が優れる系統や品種が、乾燥ストレスなどの不良環境下においても、良好な成長を示すことが報告されている。そのため、根系が発達する突然変異体を対象として、変異遺伝子の同定が進められてきた。しかし、これらの変異遺伝子が実際の育種の現場において実用化された例は決して多くない。この主要な理由として、多くの遺伝子が複数の器官で共通に発現することが挙げられる。本研究にて試みた器官特異的な発現量制御を可能にするシス配列の同定が進めば、一つの変異遺伝子の多面発現性を克服することができ、これら有用遺伝子を実際の育種現場において利用できるものと期待される。