Abstract
Nitrogen fertilizer significantly increases spikelet number and grain yield in rice. Although many transcriptome analyses of rice have been conducted, this is the first study to examine differential gene expression in young panicles of rice in response to nitrogen fertilizer. Digital gene expression tag profiling is a revolutionary approach for gene expression analysis. Here, differential gene expression was analyzed in young panicles that received different applications of fertilizer. Digital gene expression analysis identified hundreds of genes that significantly differed in their expression level after the plants received nitrogen treatment. Of note, nitrogen fertilizer significantly reduced several major photoperiod sensitivity regulators that trigger flowering in rice. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis also showed that the expression of two florigen genes, Heading date 3a (Hd3a) and RICE FLOWERING LOCUS T 1 (RFT1), was repressed in leaves by nitrogen fertilizer. In addition, the expression of two important genes that control panicle size, OsEATB and DENSE AND ERECT PANICLE1 (DEP1), was significantly promoted by nitrogen fertilizer. The identification of novel differentially expressed genes provides new insights into the profound impacts of nitrogen fertilizer on panicle development and may suggest new strategies to improve yield in rice.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 31401324), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Numbers KJQN201504), and the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program, Grant Number 2014AA10A605-1).
Author contributions
C.D., S.W., and Y.D. conceived and designed the experiments. C.D. performed the experiments and analyzed the data. C.D., Y.W. and S.Y. wrote the paper.
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Ding, C., Wang, Y., You, S. et al. Digital gene expression analysis reveals nitrogen fertilizer increases panicle size by repressing Hd3a signaling in rice. Plant Growth Regul 79, 47–54 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-015-0108-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10725-015-0108-0