Overexpression of ZmDWF4 improves major agronomic traits and enhances yield in maize
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Overexpression of ZmDWF4 improves major agronomic traits and enhances yield in maize Na Liu & Ya Jie Zhao & Jia Wen Wu & Yi Ming Wei & Ru Chang Ren & Jie Zang & Wen Ting Zhang & Lin Zhang & Qiang Shen & Xian Sheng Zhang & Xiang Yu Zhao
Received: 6 January 2020 / Accepted: 10 July 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a class of plantspecific steroid hormones and play an essential role in plant growth and development. The DWARF4 (DWF4) gene encodes a C-22 hydroxylase, which is a rate-limiting enzyme in BR biosynthesis pathway. Here, the DWF4 (ZmDWF4) in maize (Zea mays L.), the ortholog of Arabidopsis DWF4 (CYP90B1), was transformed into elite inbred Q319 and driven maize ubiquitin promoter. In transgenic lines, the level of the endogenous BR precursor canosterone (CS) was significantly enhanced. ZmDWF4 overexpression greatly improved grain yield per ear from 28.3 to 33.5% in transgenic lines compared with that in non-transgenic Q319 plants. Moreover, ZmDWF4 overexpression significantly enhanced heterosis of combinations by increasing both seed number and seed weight up to 20.4% in transgenic hybrids. Further analysis revealed that ZmDWF4 overexpression significantly improved several agronomic traits and leaf photosynthetic ability in transgenic lines. Finally, RNA-seq analysis suggested that overexpressing ZmDWF4 improved cell growth, cell division, Na Liu and Ya Jie Zhao contributed equally to this work. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-020-01152-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. N. Liu : Y. J. Zhao : J. W. Wu : Y. M. Wei : R. C. Ren : J. Zang : W. T. Zhang : L. Zhang : Q. Shen : X. S. Zhang (*) : X. Y. Zhao (*) State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, College of Life Sciences, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai’an 271018 Shandong, China e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]
and nutrient assimilation in transgenic kernels. Altogether, our results demonstrate that manipulating BR level by overexpressing ZmDWF4 effectively improves maize agronomic traits, and thus, provides a useful biotechnological strategy for the genetic improvement and further commercially favorable maize breeding. Keywords Maize . Brassinosteroids . ZmDWF4 . Agronomic traits . Yield
Introduction Maize is one of the most important crops in the world. Using transgenic engineering to genetically improve yield traits has been considered as an effective strategy to alleviate the increasingly prominent conflicts between crop supply and global food demands. In recent years, functional genes have been chosen as the targets of genetic manipulation for improving grain yields in terms of promoting starch synthesis, cell division, and sugar transport (Hannah et al. 2012; Li et al. 2013; Sun et al. 2017; Wu et al. 2008; Wu et al. 2019; Xie et al. 2018). Brassinosteroids (BRs) are plant-specific steroid hormones that play important roles in plant growth and development by regulating cell elongation, d
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