Waqas Muhammad Abu Bakar
Agricultural Biotechnology Division, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Constituent College Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Funct Integr Genomics. 2025 Jun 27;25(1):137. doi: 10.1007/s10142-025-01655-5.
With the increase in global temperatures, heat stress damaged the yield as well as grain quality of many cereal crops. Enhancing high temperature resistance in cereals have been remained a long sought objective. Li et al. recently published their breakthrough work in cell journal which identified a first grain yield quality thermotolerance negative regulating gene QT12 in rice. Targeting this locus either thorough genome editing or introgression of its natural variant by breeding lowers its expression and preserves both yield and quality, when temperature rises. It breaks the crop breeding bottleneck of yield-quality trade-off effect. The impact of this gene may be even broader than rice in introducing thermotolerance in other cereals which are facing the similar problems. Study provides powerful resource for thermostable cereals breeding and sustainable agriculture.
随着全球气温升高，热胁迫损害了许多谷类作物的产量和谷物品质。提高谷类作物的耐高温性一直是长期追求的目标。李等人最近在《细胞》杂志上发表了他们的突破性研究成果，该研究在水稻中鉴定出首个影响谷物产量、品质和耐热性的负调控基因QT12。通过基因组编辑或育种导入其天然变异靶向该位点，当温度升高时，可降低其表达并保持产量和品质。它打破了作物育种中产量-品质权衡效应的瓶颈。该基因的影响可能比水稻更广泛，有助于其他面临类似问题的谷类作物引入耐热性。该研究为耐热谷类作物育种和可持续农业提供了强大资源。
