Influences Morphology and Grain Size in Rice.

Unlabelled: Although morphology and grain size are important to rice growth and yield, the identity of abundant natural allelic variations that determine agronomically important differences in crops is unknown. Here, we characterized the function of mitogen-activated protein kinase 3 from Wall. ex Watt encoded by . Different alternative splicing variants occurred in . Green fluorescent protein (GFP)- fusion proteins localized to the cell membrane and nuclei of rice protoplasts. Overexpression of influenced the expression levels of the grain size-related genes , , , , and Phylogenetic analysis showed that is well conserved in plants while showing large amounts of variation between , , and wild rice. In addition, slightly influenced brassinosteroid (BR) responses and the expression levels of BR-related genes. Our findings thus identify a new gene, , influencing morphology and grain size and that represents a possible link between mitogen-activated protein kinase and BR response pathways in grain growth.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12374-020-09290-2.