MANIPULATING HETEROTRIMERIC G-PROTEIN SIGNALING FOR IMPROVED AGRONOMIC TRAITS AND DROUGHT RESISTANCE IN RICE

Rice is the staple food for more than a third of the world's population. Rice is a major crop in parts of the southern US and California. Rice provides energy and nutrition in the form of carbohydrates and some proteins and lipids, as well as calcium, iron, phosphorus, and vitamins B1 and B2. Therefore, rice is important to many people. Rice is grown in a variety of environments, including rain-fed lowlands, irrigated lowlands, coastal wetland, and even uplands. However, the common feature is that rice needs considerable amounts of water. Drought has increasingly been a major factor in reduction of yields of rice and other crops. For example, in 2012 the US Midwest experienced the most severe drought since the 1950's, which resulted in water limitations on Texas rice farmers. We have discovered that a particular signaling system in rice, the heterotrimeric G-protein signaling cascade, can be manipulated to improve rice drought tolerance. The goals of the present research are to understand the mechanisms that underlie this phenomenon, thereby providing fundamental knowledge that can be used to develop improved varieties of rice which will yield better under drought stress conditions.