Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2015, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (5): 539-548.DOI: 10.11983/CBB15076

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Advances in Regulating Rice Tillers by Strigolactones

Shujia Li, Jin Gao, Jiayang Li, Yonghong Wang*   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2015-05-18 Accepted:2015-07-02 Online:2015-09-01 Published:2015-10-09
  • Contact: Wang Yonghong
  • About author:

    ? These authors contributed equally to this paper

Abstract: Rice (Oryza sativa) is the staple food for more than half of the world’s population. Elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying rice agronomic traits plays a critical role in improving rice grain yield. Tillers, specialized branches of rice, are key agronomic traits that determine grain production and are an ideal model system for understanding the regulatory mechanisms that regulate shoot branching of higher plants. Strigolactones (SLs) are newly discovered plant hormones that inhibit shoot branching. Although remarkable progress has been made in SL biosynthesis and signaling, the signaling targets remain largely unknown. Here, we summarize the recent progress in SL biosynthetic and signaling pathways, most based on rice tillering. We discuss strategies for identifying new components in the SL pathway.