OsWUS-driven synthetic apomixis in hybrid rice
Yong Huang, Xiangbing Meng, Yuchun Rao, Yingying Xie, Tingting Sun, Wenqiang Chen, Xin Wei, Jie Xiong, Hong Yu, Jiayang Li, Kejian Wang
Abstract
Heterosis is fundamental to enhancing agricultural productivity and significantly boosting food security. However, the advantageous phenotypes of heterosis in F1 hybrids are lost in subsequent generations owing to random segregation of chromosomes and meiotic recombination and, thereby, trait segregation, necessitating substantial annual reinvestment in seed production. Apomixis, a form of asexual reproduction through seeds, circumvents these issues by maintaining heterozygous genotypes of hybrids across generations, thus preserving trait uniformity and enhancing heterosis utilization (Underwood and Mercier, 2022; Xiong et al., 2023).