A mini foxtail millet with an Arabidopsis-like life cycle as a C4 model system

作者：Zhirong Yang, Haoshan Zhang, Xukai Li, Huimin Shen, Jianhua Gao, Siyu Hou, Bin Zhang, Sean Mayes, Malcolm Bennett, Jianxin Ma, Chuanyin Wu, Yi Sui, Yuanhuai Han & Xingchun Wang

影响因子：19.4

刊物名称：Nature Plants

出版年份： 31 August 2020

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0747-7

Abstract

Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is an important crop species and an emerging model plant for C4 grasses. However, functional genomics research on foxtail millet is challenging because of its long generation time, relatively large stature and recalcitrance to genetic transformation. Here we report the development of xiaomi, a rapid-cycling mini foxtail millet mutant as a C4 model system. Five to six generations of xiaomi can be grown in a year in growth chambers due to its short life cycle and small plant size, similar to Arabidopsis. A point mutation in the Phytochrome C (PHYC) gene was found to be causal for these characteristics. PHYC encodes a light receptor essential for photoperiodic flowering. A reference-grade xiaomi genome comprising 429.94 Mb of sequence was assembled and a gene-expression atlas from 11 different tissues was developed. These resources, together with an established highly efficient transformation system and a multi-omics database, make xiaomi an ideal model system for functional studies of C4 plants.