, a SBP-Box Gene, Plays a Dual Role in Salt Tolerance and Trichome Formation in Rice ( L.).

Salinity is one of the major abiotic stress factors limiting rice production. Glabrousness is a trait of agronomic importance in rice ( L.). We previously found a single-gene recessive mutant , which displayed increased salt tolerance and glabrous leaf and glume without trichomes, and identified an SBP-box gene as the candidate of the gene. In this study, -knockout and -overexpression mutants were created to check the function of the gene. The knockout mutants exhibited enhanced salt tolerance and glabrous leaves and glumes as expected, while the overexpression mutants showed opposite phenotypes, in which both salt sensitivity and trichome density on leaf and glume were increased. These results clearly confirmed that is , and suggested that controls the initiation rather than the elongation of trichomes. In addition, expression analysis indicated that was preferentially expressed in young panicle and stem, and protein OsSPL10 was localized in nucleus. Taken together, negatively controls salt tolerance but positively controls trichome formation in rice.