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Rice quality is one of the main targets of rice breeding and is a complex trait that involves grain appearance, milling, cooking, eating and nutritional quality. For many years, rice breeding has contended with imbalances in rice yield, quality, and disease and lodging resistance. Here, the milling and appearance quality, cooking quality, starch rapid viscosity analyzer (RVA) profile, and nutritional quality of grains of Yuenongsimiao (YNSM), an indica rice variety with high yield, high quality and disease resistance, were determined. YNSM had excellent appearance and quality, with low amylose contents and high gel consistency, and these characteristics exhibited significant correlations with the RVA profile such as hot paste viscosity, cool paste viscosity, setback viscosity, and consistency. Moreover, 5 genes related to length-to-width ratio (LWR) as well as the Wx gene were used to detect the main quality genotype of YNSM. The results showed that YNSM is a semilong-grain rice with a relatively high brown rice rate, milled rice rate and head rice yield and low chalkiness. The results indicated that the LWR and food quality of YNSM might be related to gs3, gw7 and Wxb. This study also reports the quality characteristics of hybrid rice developed using YNSM as a restorer line. The quality characteristics and the genotype for grain quality determined through gene analysis in YNSM may facilitate the breeding of new rice varieties that achieve a balance of grain yield, resistance and quality.

The pathogenic bacterial genus Xanthomonas infects a wide variety of host plants and causes devastating diseases in many crops. Transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) are important virulence factors secreted by Xanthomonas with the ability to directly bind to the promoters of target genes in plant hosts and activate their expression, which often facilitates the proliferation of pathogens. Understanding how plants cope with TALEs will provide mechanistic insights into crop breeding for Xanthomonas defense. Over the past 30 years, numerous studies have revealed the modes of action of TALEs in plant cells and plant defense strategies to overcome TALE attack. Based on these findings, new technologies were adopted for disease management to optimize crop production. In this article, we will review the most recent advances in the evolutionary arms race between plant resistance and TALEs from Xanthomonas, with a specific focus on TALE applications in the development of novel breeding strategies for durable and broad-spectrum resistance.

Background The anthers and pollen grains are critical for male fertility and hybrid rice breeding. The development of rice mature anther and pollen consists of multiple continuous stages. However, molecular mechanisms regulating mature anther development were poorly understood. Results In this study, we have identified 291 mature anther-preferentially expressed genes (OsSTA) in rice based on Affymetrix microarray data. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis indicated that OsSTA genes mainly participated in metabolic and cellular processes that are likely important for rice anther and pollen development. The expression patterns of OsSTA genes were validated using real-time PCR and mRNA in situ hybridizations. Cis-element identification showed that most of the OsSTA genes had the cis-elements responsive to phytohormone regulation. Co-expression analysis of OsSTA genes showed that genes annotated with pectinesterase and calcium ion binding activities were rich in the network, suggesting that OsSTA genes could be involved in pollen germination and anther dehiscence. Furthermore, OsSTA RNAi transgenic lines showed male-sterility and pollen germination defects. Conclusions The results suggested that OsSTA genes function in rice male fertility, pollen germination and anther dehiscence and established molecular regulating networks that lay the foundation for further functional studies. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1305-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.