Characteristics of the C4 bundle sheath emerge in C3 rice after editing a plasma membrane proton ATPase
Hua, L.; Plackett, A. R. G.; Wang, N.; Hibberd, J. M.
Crop Improvement
Rice paddies feed half the world on shrinking water budgets — and this single gene edit quietly reshapes the leaf cells that could make the next generation of rice as efficient as corn.
Plants use two main strategies to turn sunlight into food. The more advanced strategy, used by corn and sugarcane, is far more efficient but relies on specially shaped cells in the leaf. Rice uses the older, less efficient strategy. Researchers found one gene that controls the size and number of those special cells in rice — and by switching it off, they got rice leaves to look a little more like corn leaves. This is a small but meaningful step toward engineering rice that could feed more people using less land and water.
Key Findings
Knocking out the OSA3 gene in rice reduced bundle sheath cell length by decreasing acid secretion into the cell wall space, confirming that 'acid growth' controls cell elongation in these key leaf cells.
Edited rice plants showed increased bundle sheath cell number and greater chloroplast occupancy — two hallmarks of the high-efficiency C4 photosynthetic system found in crops like corn.
C4 photosynthesis can raise crop yield by up to 50% compared with the C3 pathway used by rice, and OSA3 represents a single-gene entry point toward engineering that transition.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists discovered a single gene in rice that controls the size and number of bundle sheath cells — the specialized cells that give C4 plants like corn their superior efficiency. Knocking out this gene nudges rice one step closer to the high-yielding C4 photosynthesis system, potentially pointing toward rice varieties that produce 50% more grain with less water and fertilizer.
Abstract Preview
C4 photosynthesis improves light, water and nitrogen-use efficiencies and can raise yield by 50% compared with the ancestral C3 pathway. Engineering C4 traits into C3 crops could substantially boos...
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