Chinese researchers make new progress in rice heterosis

Chinese researchers recently made a breakthrough in rice heterosis, providing further insight into the molecular mechanism and the prediction of heterosis in rice.

Researchers from the Rice Research Institute under the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences generated five F1 hybrids (the first filial generation hybrids), including four showing better-parent heterosis and one showing mid-parent heterosis, and performed the transcriptomic and methylomic analysis.

They found and preliminarily confirmed an index that can effectively predict the heterosis level of F1 generations of different materials, which laid a foundation for efficient breeding of new hybrid rice combinations with strong heterosis.

Transcriptomic results also showed that most of the differentially expressed genes shared in the four better-parent hybrids were significantly enriched in terms of molecular function and the additive and dominant effects played a crucial role in rice heterosis.

The researchers published their findings in the Plant Journal.