Developing Herbicide-Resistant Rice with Novel Genes

Glyphosate is a leading broad spectrum herbicide, but it is not suitable to be used in the rice field due to its toxicity to rice. Developing glyphosate-resistant rice can broaden the available herbicides for rice production and provide more effective weed management strategies. I.variabilis-EPSPS is a novel herbicide-resistant gene isolated from the bacterium Isoptericola variabilis. The original gene was codon-optimized (designated as I.variabilis-EPSPS*) and transferred into a japonica rice cultivar Zhonghua11 by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The glyphosate tolerance of the selected transgenic plants was highly improved compared to the wild type on the 1//2 MS medium containing glyphosate. The agronomic traits of them were not affected by the application of glyphosate even when the application dose was 10 times of the recommended dose for agricultural application. Collectively, the novel gene I.variabilis-EPSPS* is a promising candidate genes for developing herbicide-resistant rice and the selected transgenic rice in our research have potential to be used in agricultural production.