The OsSRO1c-OsDREB2B complex undergoes protein phase transition to enhance cold tolerance in rice.

Cold stress is one of the major abiotic stress factors affecting rice growth and development, leading to significant yield loss in the context of global climate change. Exploring natural variants that confer cold resistance and the underlying molecular mechanism responsible for this is the major strategy to breed cold tolerant rice varieties. Here, we show that the natural variations of a SIMILAR to RCD ONE (SRO) gene, OsSRO1c, confer cold tolerance in rice at both seedling and booting stages. OsSRO1c possesses intrinsic liquid-liquid phase separation ability in vivo and in vitro and recruits an AP2/ERF transcription factor and positive cold stress regulator, OsDREB2B, into its biomolecular condensates in the nucleus, resulting in elevated transcriptional activity of OsDREB2B. The OsSRO1c-OsDREB2B complex directly responds to low temperature through dynamic phase transitions and regulates key cold response genes, including COLD1. Furthermore, introgression of an elite haplotype of OsSRO1c into a cold susceptible indica rice significantly increases its cold resistance. Collectively, our work reveals a novel cold tolerance regulatory module in rice and provides promising genetic targets for molecular breeding of cold-tolerant rice varieties.

Control of rice ratooning ability by a nucleoredoxin that inhibits histidine kinase dimerization to attenuate cytokinin signaling in axillary buds.

Rice ratooning, the fast outgrowth of dormant buds on stubble, is an important cropping practice in rice production. However, the low ratooning ability (RA) of most rice varieties restricts the application of this cost-efficient system, and the genetic basis of RA remains unknown. In this study, we dissected the genetic architecture of RA by a genome-wide association study in a natural rice population. Rice ratooning ability 3 (RRA3), encoding a hitherto not characterized nucleoredoxin involved in reduction of disulfide bonds, was identified as the causal gene of a major locus controlling RA. Overexpression of RRA3 in rice significantly accelerated leaf senescence and reduced RA, whereas knockout of RRA3 significantly delayed leaf senescence and increased RA and ratoon yield. We demonstrated that RRA3 interacts with Oryza sativa histidine kinase 4 (OHK4), a cytokinin receptor, and inhibits the dimerization of OHK4 through disulfide bond reduction. This inhibition ultimately led to decreased cytokinin signaling and reduced RA. In addition, variations in the RRA3 promoter were identified to be associated with RA. Introgression of a superior haplotype with weak expression of RRA3 into the elite rice variety Guichao 2 significantly increased RA and ratoon yield by 23.8%. Collectively, this study not only uncovers an undocumented regulatory mechanism of cytokinin signaling through de-dimerization of a histidine kinase receptor-but also provides an eximious gene with promising value for ratoon rice breeding.

The chemical profiling of loquat leaf extract by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS and its effects on hyperlipidemia and hyperglycemia in rats induced by a high-fat and fructose diet.

In this study, the inhibitory effects of loquat leaf extract (LLE) on pancreatic α-amylase and α-glucosidase, and the preventative effects of LLE on hyperlipidemia and hyperglycemia in rats induced by a high fat and fructose diet have been evaluated. The LLE was chemically described using a high performance liquid chromatography-diode array detector coupled with a mass spectrometer (HPLC-DAD-MS/MS). 20 compounds including phenolic acids, flavonoids and triterpene acids were tentatively identified with authentic compounds or by referring to published articles and accessible databases (e.g. MassBank, METLIN). Enzyme activity measurements showed that the IC50 values of the LLE on α-amylase and α-glucosidase were 11.34 ± 1.04 mg mL-1 and 50.77 ± 1.04 µg mL-1, respectively. The calculated Michaelis-Menten constants indicated that the LLE is an effective inhibitor against α-glucosidase in a mixed-model competitive mode. The fluorescence data revealed that the LLE binds with α-amylase and α-glucosidase. The animal experiment results indicated that the LLE significantly decreased the levels of fasting blood glucose, and hepatic and serum triglycerides.