Tianzhen Liu: The Plant Cell First Author

Tianzhen Liu, first author of “Dwarf and High Tillering1 represses rice tillering through mediating the splicing of D14 pre-mRNA”

Current Position：Ph.D. candidate, Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China

Education: B.S. at Shandong Agricultural University, China

Non-scientific interests: travelling, painting, reading

Brief bio: During my Ph.D. study, I was fortunate to join Professor Wan Jianmin’s research group, mainly to study the regulation connection between strigolactone signaling and the RNA splicing machinery. As early as 2013, the research group cloned the semi-dominant dwarf key gene D53, and elucidated the signal transmit mechanism of the strigolactone for the first time in rice. The related results were published in the journal Nature. On this basis, we identified a dwarf and high tillering 1 (dht1) mutant with blocked strigolactone signaling transduction. We found that DHT1 protein, as a component of the core splicing factor U1 snRNP, is involved in RNA splicing, including the splicing of the pre-mRNA of the strigolactone receptor gene D14. Genetic test showed that DHT1 was located upstream of D53 and D14 to inhibit tiller formation in rice. This study revealed a new regulation pathway of rice tillering mediated by splicing machinery, which give us an important clue for improving rice plant architecture.

姓名：刘天珍

目前职位：中国农业科学院，博士在读

教育背景：山东农业大学，学士学位

兴趣爱好：旅行，绘画，阅读

个人简介：在博士期间，我有幸加入万建民教授课题组，主要研究RNA剪切因子对独脚金内酯信号通路基因的转录后调控。早在2013年，课题组在万建民教授的带领下克隆出半显性矮秆关键基因D53，并首次阐明“独脚金内酯”的信号传递机理，相关结果发表在Nature上。在此基础上，我们发掘了一个独脚金内酯信号传导受阻的矮杆多分蘖突变体dht1。研究发现DHT1蛋白作为核心剪切因子U1 snRNP的组分，参与众多基因的前体mRNA (pre-mRNA)内含子的剪切，包括独脚金内酯受体基因D14的pre-mRNA的剪接。遗传验证表明，DHT1位于D53和D14的上游，其通过维持D14受体蛋白的稳定表达来促进独脚金内酯信号传递，进而抑制水稻分蘖形成。该研究揭示了剪切因子参与调控水稻分蘖的分子机制，为水稻株型改良提供了新启示