Cis-acting regulatory elements in the rice genome: a novel source of alleles for rice breeding

近年来，对遗传变异的分析主要集中在蛋白质的DNA编码变化的研究上。现在越来越清楚的是，这只解释了可遗传变异的一个方面，对于许多性状，特别是复杂的数量性状，基因表达水平也可能非常重要。如果基因表达的变化是许多表型进化变化的基础，那么识别调节基因表达的遗传变异是一项重大而重要的努力。遗传学中的一个关键问题是如何识别这种类型的变异。我们提出了一种稳健的、定量的方法来有效地识别含有这种调控变体的植物基因。这种方法是新颖的，特别适合植物，因为它是基于监测实验中创造的杂交后代的基因表达。一个成功的结果将提供一种新的机制，根据基因表达的变化而不是编码蛋白质结构的变化将基因型与表型联系起来。这一方法将被用来表征一系列基因，目的是确定水稻耐旱性和抗稻瘟病的潜在候选基因。通过这些知识，我们将开发新的育种工具，应用于亚洲和非洲的水稻育种。这种方法是通用的，适用范围广，有可能揭示植物育种和生物技术计划中部署的新的遗传变异性来源。

In recent years analysis of genetic variation has focused on the study of changes in DNA coding for proteins. It is now becoming increasingly clear that this only accounts for one aspect of heritable variation and for many traits, notably complex, quantitative traits, the level of gene expression is also likely to be of great importance. If changes in gene expression underlie many evolutionary changes in phenotype, then identifying the genetic variants that regulate gene expression is a significant and important endeavour. A key problem in genetics is how to identify this type of variation. We propose a robust, quantitative approach to efficiently identify plant genes that harbour such regulatory variants. The approach is novel and particularly amenable to plants since it is based on monitoring gene expression in experimentally created hybrids. A successful outcome will provide a new mechanism to connect genotype to phenotype based on changes in gene expression rather than changes in the structure of an encoded protein. This approach will be used to characterize a series of genes with the objective of identifying potential candidates for tolerance to drought and blast resistance in rice. Through this knowledge, we will develop new breeding tools for application in rice breeding for Asia and Africa. The approach is generic and widely applicable with the potential to reveal new sources of genetic variability for deployment in plant breeding and biotechnology programmes.