中国科学院遗传与发育生物学研究所傅向东团队的一项最新研究揭示了精确控制染色质环挤压提高水稻可持续绿色革命产量。该研究于2025年10月29日发表于国际一流学术期刊《自然—遗传学》杂志上。

本研究表明，水稻终端花1/CENTRORADIALIS同源基因RCN2的自然变异通过限制染色质环的外移来增强光合作用、氮同化和籽粒产量。RCN2竞争性地抑制生长抑制蛋白DELLA与SQUAMOSA启动子结合蛋白样转录因子之间的相互作用，打破了植物生长与碳氮代谢之间的绿色革命权衡。研究结果表明，在RCN2位点定位含有ccctc的绝缘子元件，不仅可以在不影响有益的半矮化的情况下实现分蘖和穗分枝的解耦，而且可以改善叶片的碳汇分配和氮主题效率，从而提高低氮肥水平下的收获指数和水稻产量。精确调控氮肥环的抽吸量，为高产谷类作物减少氮肥施用提供了新的育种策略。

据了解，无机肥料的持续过剩是当前全球作物生产的根本问题；因此，在提高作物生产力的同时减少化肥用量对确保农业可持续性和粮食安全至关重要。

附：英文原文

Title: Precise control of chromatin loop extrusion enhances sustainable green revolution yield in rice

Author: Liu, Qian, Liu, Hui, Sun, Lili, Wang, Dekai, Sun, Xueyuan, Wu, Kun, Ye, Yafeng, Wang, Yun, Wang, Shuoxun, Zhong, Nan, Wu, Xiaokang, Li, Yu, Deng, Min, Wang, Meiyue, Wu, Chenchen, Liu, Xueying, Zhang, Yijing, Xiao, Jun, Wu, Yuejin, Fu, Xiangdong

Issue&Volume: 2025-10-29

Abstract: Continuous and excessive use of inorganic fertilizers underlies current global crop production; therefore, reducing fertilizer use while increasing crop productivity is critical for ensuring agricultural sustainability and food security. Here we show that the natural variant of RCN2, a rice TERMINAL FLOWER 1/CENTRORADIALIS homolog, enhances photosynthesis, nitrogen assimilation and grain yield by restricting chromatin loop extrusion. RCN2 competitively inhibits the interaction between growth-repressing DELLA proteins and SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE transcription factors, breaking the green revolution trade-off between plant growth and metabolism of carbon and nitrogen. We demonstrate that targeting CCCTC-containing insulator elements at the RCN2 locus confers not only decoupling tillering and panicle branching without affecting beneficial semi-dwarfism, but also improves source-to-sink carbon allocation and nitrogen-use efficiency, consequently increasing harvest index and rice yield at low nitrogen fertilization levels. Precise modulation of loop extrusion thus enables new breeding strategies to reduce nitrogen fertilizer use in high-yield cereal crops.

DOI: 10.1038/s41588-025-02376-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02376-y