FLOURY ENDOSPERM19 encoding a class I glutamine amidotransferase affects grain quality in rice.

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As a staple food for more than half of the world's population, the importance of rice is self-evident. Compared with ordinary rice, rice cultivars with superior eating quality and appearance quality are more popular with consumers due to their unique taste and ornamental value, even if their price is much higher. Appearance quality and CEQ (cooking and eating quality) are two very important aspects in the evaluation of rice quality. Here, we performed a genome-wide association study on floury endosperm in a diverse panel of 533 cultivated rice accessions. We identified a batch of potential floury genes and prioritize one () for functional analyses. Two floury outer endosperm mutants ( and ) were generated through editing (named as in this study), which encodes a class I glutamine amidotransferase. The different performances of the two mutants in various storage substances directly led to completely different changes in CEQ. The mutation of gene caused the damage of carbon and nitrogen metabolism in rice, which affected the normal growth and development of rice, including decreased plant height and yield loss by decreased grain filling rate. Through haplotype analysis, we identified a haplotype of that can improve both CEQ and appearance quality of rice, Hap2, which provides a selection target for rice quality improvement, especially for high-yield rice varieties.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11032-021-01226-z.