College of Agriculture, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434000, China.
National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agriculture University, Wuhan, 430070, China.
Theor Appl Genet. 2020 May;133(5):1385-1396. doi: 10.1007/s00122-020-03554-8. Epub 2020 Jan 31.
The review summarizes the functions of the plant special transcription factors CCT family genes in multiple traits and discusses the molecular breeding strategies with CCT family genes in the future. Plants integrate circadian clock and external signals such as temperature and photoperiod to synchronize flowering with seasonal environmental changes. This process makes cereal crops including short-day crops, such as rice and maize, and long-day crops, such as wheat and barley, better adapt to varied growth zones from temperate to tropical regions. CCT family genes involve circadian clock and photoperiodic flowering pathways and help plants set a suitable flowering time to produce offspring. Beyond the flowering time, CCT family genes in cereal crops are associated with biomass and grain yield. Moreover, recent studies showed that they also associate with photosynthesis, nutrition use efficiency and stress tolerance. Here, we systematically review the progress in functional characterization of CCT family genes in flowering, geographical adaptation and grain yield formation, raise the core questions related to their molecular mechanisms and discuss how to practice them in genetic improvement in cereal crops by combining gene diagnosis and top-level design.
该综述总结了植物特殊转录因子 CCT 家族基因在多个性状中的功能，并讨论了未来 CCT 家族基因的分子育种策略。植物将生物钟和外部信号（如温度和光周期）整合在一起，使开花与季节性环境变化同步。这一过程使包括短日照作物（如水稻和玉米）和长日照作物（如小麦和大麦）在内的谷类作物更好地适应从温带到热带地区的不同生长带。CCT 家族基因涉及生物钟和光周期开花途径，有助于植物设定合适的开花时间以产生后代。除了开花时间，谷类作物中的 CCT 家族基因还与生物量和籽粒产量有关。此外，最近的研究表明，它们还与光合作用、营养利用效率和胁迫耐受性有关。在这里，我们系统地综述了 CCT 家族基因在开花、地理适应和籽粒产量形成中的功能特征研究进展，提出了与它们的分子机制相关的核心问题，并讨论了如何通过结合基因诊断和顶层设计将其应用于谷类作物的遗传改良。
