1. Overexpression of zmm28 increases maize grain yield in the field.
- Author
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Wu J, Lawit SJ, Weers B, Sun J, Mongar N, Van Hemert J, Melo R, Meng X, Rupe M, Clapp J, Haug Collet K, Trecker L, Roesler K, Peddicord L, Thomas J, Hunt J, Zhou W, Hou Z, Wimmer M, Jantes J, Mo H, Liu L, Wang Y, Walker C, Danilevskaya O, Lafitte RH, Schussler JR, Shen B, and Habben JE
- Subjects
- Amino Acid Sequence, Crops, Agricultural enzymology, Glutamate-Ammonia Ligase metabolism, Nitrate Reductase metabolism, Nitrogen metabolism, Photosynthesis genetics, Plant Leaves physiology, Plant Proteins chemistry, Plant Proteins genetics, Plant Proteins metabolism, Plants, Genetically Modified, Protein Binding, Transcriptome, Zea mays enzymology, Crops, Agricultural genetics, Edible Grain, Genes, Plant, Zea mays genetics
- Abstract
Increasing maize grain yield has been a major focus of both plant breeding and genetic engineering to meet the global demand for food, feed, and industrial uses. We report that increasing and extending expression of a maize MADS-box transcription factor gene, zmm28 , under the control of a moderate-constitutive maize promoter, results in maize plants with increased plant growth, photosynthesis capacity, and nitrogen utilization. Molecular and biochemical characterization of zmm28 transgenic plants demonstrated that their enhanced agronomic traits are associated with elevated plant carbon assimilation, nitrogen utilization, and plant growth. Overall, these positive attributes are associated with a significant increase in grain yield relative to wild-type controls that is consistent across years, environments, and elite germplasm backgrounds., Competing Interests: Competing interest statement: This work was funded by Corteva Agriscience, a for-profit agricultural technology company, as part of its research and development program., (Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)
- Published
- 2019
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