China News Service, Shanghai, June 17 (Reporter Zheng Yingying) Food is also afraid of heat, and high temperature has reduced the production of major food crops in the world.

The research team of Lin Hongxuan from the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the research team of Lin Youshun from Shanghai Jiaotong University cooperated to introduce the African cultivated rice-related gene locus with strong high temperature resistance into Asian cultivated rice to cultivate new heat-resistant strains.

The related results were published in the top international academic journal Science on June 17, Beijing time.

  According to the prediction of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), every 1°C increase in the global average temperature will lead to a 19.7% decrease in the yield of major food crops, including a 6.0% decrease in wheat yield, a 3.2% decrease in rice yield, a 7.4% decrease in corn yield, and a 3.1% decrease in soybean yield. .

By 2040, high temperatures will reduce global food production by 30% to 40%.

Photo courtesy of Lin Hongxuan, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  After 7 years of hard work (including the construction of genetic materials, which took nearly 10 years), the Chinese research team successfully isolated and cloned a new gene locus for high temperature resistance in rice, TT3, and clarified its new mechanism for regulating high temperature resistance.

  According to Lin Hongxuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team conducted a large-scale rice genetic population screening of exchange individuals and identification of heat-resistant phenotypes, and positioned and cloned a gene locus TT3 that controls high-temperature resistance in rice.

Further research found that the TT3 locus from African cultivated rice (CG14) has stronger high temperature resistance than the TT3 locus from Asian cultivated rice (WYJ).

  In order to understand the production and application value of TT3, the research team introduced the TT3 gene locus of African cultivated rice into Asian cultivated rice through the multi-generation hybrid backcross method, and cultivated a new heat-resistant line, the near-isogenic line NIL-TT3CG14 .

  Under the conditions of high temperature treatment at the heading and grain filling stages, the yield increase effect of NIL-TT3CG14 was about 1 times that of the control line.

  Further research found that there are two genes TT3.1 and TT3.2 in the TT3 gene locus that antagonize the regulation of high temperature resistance in rice.

The researchers said that the new high temperature resistance genes TT3.1 and TT3.2 can be applied to the breeding and improvement of high temperature resistance in crops such as rice, wheat, corn, soybean and vegetables with the help of molecular biotechnology methods, so as to improve the high temperature resistance of different crop varieties. It can maintain its output stability under extreme high temperature, and help to cope with the food security problems caused by global warming.

  It is reported that Zhang Hai, a doctoral student at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (jointly cultivated by ShanghaiTech University), is the first author of this article, and Academician Lin Hongxuan and Associate Professor Lin Youshun are the co-corresponding authors of this article.

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