Increasing global surface temperatures is posing a major food security challenge. Part of the solution to address this problem is to improve crop heat resilience, especially during grain development, along with agronomic decisions such as shift in planting time and increasing crop diversification. Rice is a major food crop consumed by more than 3 billion people. For rice, thermal sensitivity of reproductive development and grain filling is well‐documented, while knowledge concerning the impact of heat stress (HS) on early seed development is limited. Here, we aim to study the phenotypic variation in a set of diverse rice accessions for elucidating the HS response during early seed development. To explore the variation in HS sensitivity, we investigated
A transient heat stress occurring during early seed development in rice (
- Award ID(s):
- 1736192
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10449201
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Plant, Cell & Environment
- Volume:
- 44
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 0140-7791
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 2604-2624
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract aus (1),indica (2), temperate japonica (2), and tropical japonica (4) accessions for their HS (39/35°C) response during early seed development that accounts for transition of endosperm from syncytial to cellularization, which broadly corresponds to 24 and 96 hr after fertilization (HAF), respectively, in rice. The twoindica and one of thetropical japonica accessions exhibited severe heat sensitivity with increased seed abortion; threetropical japonicas and anaus accession showed moderate heat tolerance, whiletemperate japonicas exhibited strong heat tolerance. The accessions exhibiting extreme heat sensitivity maintain seed size at the expense of number of fully developed mature seeds, while the accessions showing relative resilience to the transient HS maintained number of fully developed seeds but compromised on seed size, especially seed length. Further, histochemical analysis revealed that all the tested accessions have delayed endosperm cellularization upon exposure to the transient HS by 96 HAF; however, the rate of cellularization was different among the accessions. These findings were further corroborated by upregulation of cellularization‐associated marker genes in the developing seeds from the heat‐stressed samples. -
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