Chinese researchers successfully drew a spatiotemporal cell map of the entire rice life cycle

Xinhua News Agency, Haikou, October 7 (Reporter Chen Kaizi) The entire process of a rice seed, from germination to growing ears, is like a huge and sophisticated super factory. Thousands of cells, some responsible for growing roots, some responsible for grain formation... They need to work together at the right time and location.

In the past, it was difficult for researchers to see the detailed inner workings of rice. Now, this cognitive blind spot has been broken. Yazhou Bay National Laboratory teamed up with 12 scientific research institutions including the BGI Life Sciences Institute, Huazhong Agricultural University, Southern University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University, and the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to construct a three-dimensional spatiotemporal cell map covering the entire process of rice from seed germination to flowering and fruiting, providing new research resources for understanding rice growth and development and exploring grain quality improvement. The relevant paper results were published online in the international academic journal "Cell" on October 6.

Using the japonica rice variety "Zhonghua 11" as material, the researchers integrated spatiotemporal omics technology, single-cell omics technology, and high-throughput gene sequencers independently developed by the BGI Life Sciences Institute to establish a map covering 10 types of rice organs or tissues and 61 developmental stages. During this period, researchers obtained more than 850,000 high-quality cell nuclear data and more than 340,000 spatial data units, annotating 119 cell types and 133 cell subtypes.

These data map the molecular characteristics of rice cells to their spatial locations and show changes at different developmental stages. With this "high-definition map", researchers can observe how different cells "work together" and "assemble" a complete rice plant.

According to reports, this scientific research breakthrough is closely related to people's dining tables. For example, rice is mainly the endosperm of rice, which determines the taste and nutrition of rice. The study found that the internal cells of the endosperm, which appears to be integrated, have an extremely fine "spatial division of labor." The area near the "back" is rich in genes related to carbohydrate metabolism and starch synthesis; the area near the "abdomen" is more likely to contain genes related to storage protein synthesis. In addition, the same key regulatory factor also plays different functions in different cellular spatial environments. This means that if scientists want to breed more delicious or nutritious rice in the future, they can develop more targeted spatial partitioning control strategies based on the map.

Combining the research results, the researchers also developed a rice single-cell basic model, which can later be used to more effectively identify, compare and reuse data, providing important research clues for key gene mining and directional breeding exploration.