Can the Wild Perennial, Rhizomatous Rice Species Oryza longistaminata be a Candidate for De Novo Domestication?

Abstract

As climate change intensifies, the development of resilient rice that can tolerate abiotic stresses is urgently needed. In nature, many wild plants have evolved a variety of mechanisms to protect themselves from environmental stresses. Wild relatives of rice may have abundant and virtually untapped genetic diversity and are an essential source of germplasm for the improvement of abiotic stress tolerance in cultivated rice. Unfortunately, the barriers of traditional breeding approaches, such as backcrossing and transgenesis, make it challenging and complex to transfer the underlying resilience traits between plants. However, de novo domestication via genome editing is a quick approach to produce rice with high yields from orphans or wild relatives. African wild rice, Oryza longistaminata, which is part of the AA-genome Oryza species has two types of propagation strategies viz. vegetative propagation via rhizome and seed propagation. It also shows tolerance to multiple types of abiotic stress, and therefore O. longistaminata is considered a key candidate of wild rice for heat, drought, and salinity tolerance, and it is also resistant to lodging. Importantly, O. longistaminata is perennial and propagates also via rhizomes both of which are traits that are highly valuable for the sustainable production of rice. Therefore, O. longistaminata may be a good candidate for de novo domestication through genome editing to obtain rice that is more climate resilient than modern elite cultivars of O. sativa.

Comparative metabolite profiling of salt sensitive Oryza sativa and the halophytic wild rice Oryza coarctata under salt stress

“…The wild rice species, O. coarctata has survived environmental perturbations and adjusted its genetic profile over thousands of years to survive and set grains in seawater (40 dS/m). Therefore, its gene pool can be used to improve the tolerance and yield of domesticated rice at higher than the current levels of salinity in which it can grow (Tasnim et al., 2023 ; Tong et al., 2023 ). The high salt tolerance of this variety is possibly linked to many naturally adapted phenotypic changes, such as unicellular trichomes (Flowers et al., 1990 ), salt glands in both upper and lower leaf surfaces, and rhizoid‐like thin rootlets (Maisha et al., 2022 ; Sengupta & Majumder, 2010 ).…”

AP2/EREBP Pathway Plays an Important Role in Chaling Wild Rice Tolerance to Cold Stress

“…Wild rice possesses superior genetic diversity compared to cultivated rice due to artificial preference selection during domestication. This abundant gene pool of wild rice can be utilized to improve the tolerance of cultivated rice to abiotic stress or diseases [26]. It was reported that wild rice (Oryza rufipogon Griff ) is one of the cold-tolerant rice varieties, which is more resistant to low-temperature stress than indica rice varieties and can survive even at −1.0 • C [21] with much higher cold tolerance than generally cultivated rice.…”