ABRC logo

Carotenoid biosynthesis drives root plasticity through aerenchyma and iron plaque formation in rice

Carotenoid biosynthesis drives root plasticity through aerenchyma and iron plaque formation in rice相片

Our study decouples the mechanisms of iron plaque and aerenchyma formation, revealing that these two processes, previously assumed to be mechanistically linked, are regulated independently by distinct hormonal pathways.

Through a forward genetic screen, we identified a rice mutant from an indica cultivar IR64 defective in both aerenchyma development and iron plaque formation, with the causal mutation mapped to Phytoene Synthase 2 (OsPSY2). We show that OsPSY2 regulates carotenoid-derived hormones, where strigolactones (SLs) control aerenchyma formation, while abscisic acid (ABA) regulates iron plaque deposition. In the psy2 mutant, exogenous SL restored aerenchyma formation, while ABA rescued iron plaque deposition, demonstrating their independent regulatory roles. It challenges the conventional view of root adaptations to Fe stress while offering insights into hormonal control of plant-environment interactions.

This study provides a major advance in understanding how plants integrate hormonal signaling to drive root plasticity, with broad implications for crop adaptation to Fe toxicity and waterlogged soils. Given the importance of Fe homeostasis in rice production, our findings offer potential applications for developing stress-resilient rice varieties. Article is published in Nature
Plants 2026, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-025-02170-y


J. K. Shrestha, C.-Y. Lin, J. Y. Wang, I-C. Tang, C.-H. Hu, M. Tsednee, Y. Zhang, M. Jamil, L.M.T. Berqdar, I. Blilou, S. Al-Babili, C.-S. Wang, and K.-C. Yeh * (2026) Carotenoid biosynthesis drives root plasticity through aerenchyma and iron plaque formation in rice Nature Plants, DOI: 10.1038/s41477-025-02170-y.