Fine‐tuning the amylose content of rice by precise base editing of the Wx gene

• Published in: Plant biotechnology journal Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 11 - 13
• Main Authors: Xu, Yang, Lin, Qiupeng, Li, Xiufeng, Wang, Fangquan, Chen, Zhihui, Wang, Jun, Li, Wenqi, Fan, Fangjun, Tao, Yajun, Jiang, Yanjie, Wei, Xiaodong, Zhang, Rui, Zhu, Qian‐Hao, Bu, Qingyun, Yang, Jie, Gao, Caixia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.01.2021; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Agronomic crops; Agronomy; Amino acids; Amylose; amylose content; appearance quality; base editing; Brief Communication; Brief Communications; eating and cooking quality; Endosperm; Genetic diversity; Genetic variability; Granule-bound starch synthase; Mutation; Oryza - genetics; Plant breeding; Plant Proteins - genetics; Proteins; Rice; Seeds; Starch Synthase; Structural models; Waxy gene; Wx; rice; base editing; eating and cooking quality; amylose content; appearance quality
• ISSN: 1467-7644; 1467-7652; 1467-7652
• DOI: 10.1111/pbi.13433

The genetic diversity and phenotypic variability of crop agronomic traits is valued by breeders for their benefits in crop breeding but are limited for most target traits. The rice Waxy (Wx) gene (LOC_Os06g04200) encodes granule‐bound starch synthase I (GBSSI), which determines the amylose content (AC) of endosperm by controlling amylose synthesis. The number of altered bases in each line (coloured in red) is indicated by the letter S followed by a number. (c) A structural model of Wxb constructed using the PROTEIN DATA BANK server; mutated residues contributing to the changes of AC are shown as spheres and are coloured (P124 in apricot, R125 in blue, R158 in red violet, G159 in white, V160 in green, D161 in red, T178 in orange and Y191 in purple). (d) Analysis of potential off‐target sites in the seven T1 edited lines. To determine the effect of these mutations on AC, we measured the apparent amylose contents (AACs) of grains from the seven mutant lines (Wxm5‐Wxm11), NIP (Wxb) and a 'soft rice' control Nangeng9108 (NG9108) (Wxmp) (Figure 1e).