Engineering chloroplast development in rice through cell-specific control of endogenous genetic circuits.

ABSTRACT: The engineering of C₄ photosynthetic activity into the C₃ plant rice has the potential to nearly double rice yields. To engineer a two-cell photosynthetic system in rice, the rice bundle sheath (BS) must be rewired to enhance photosynthetic capacity. Here, we show that BS chloroplast biogenesis is enhanced when the transcriptional activator, Oryza sativa Cytokinin GATA transcription factor 1 (OsCGA1), is driven by a vascular specific promoter. Ectopic expression of OsCGA1 resulted in increased BS chloroplast planar area and increased expression of photosynthesis-associated nuclear genes (PhANG), required for the biogenesis of photosynthetically active chloroplasts in BS cells of rice. A further refinement using a DNAse dead Cas9 (dCas9) activation module driven by the

SUBMITTER: Lee DY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8541780 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature