A WUSCHEL-like homeobox gene, OsWOX3B responses to NUDA/GL-1 locus in rice
Honglei Zhang ^1*, Kun Wu ^2*, Yufeng Wang ¹, Yu Peng ¹, Fengyi Hu ³, Lu Wen ⁴, Bin Han ¹, Qian Qian ², Sheng Teng ¹ 

¹ Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China;
² State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310006, China;
³Institute of Food Crops, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming 650205, China;
⁴Puer Agricultural Research Institute, Puer 66500, China.
^* Equal contribution
Corresponding Author：Sheng Teng, Tel: (+8621)54924159; Fax: (+8621)54924159; E-mail: steng@sibs.ac.cn; Qian Qian, Tel: (+86571)63371418; Fax: ( +86571)63370389; E-mail: qianqian188@hotmail.com.

Abstract
In this study, the “Nuda” phenotype in Yunnan Nuda Rice, a glabrous cultivar that constitutes approximately 20% of rice germplasms in Yunnan, China, was found to be controlled by a single recessive allelic gene within the well-characterized GL-1 locus. A high-resolution genetic and physical map was constructed using 1,192 Nuda individuals from the F₂ population that was delivered from the cross between the Yunnan Nuda variety HMK and the pubescent TN1 variety. The NUDA/GL-1 gene was mapped to a 28.5 kb region containing six annotated genes based on the Nipponbare genomic sequence. By comparing the sequences and expression patterns of different pubescent and glabrous varieties, LOC_Os05g02730, a WUSCHEL-like homeobox gene (OsWOX3) was identified as the candidate gene. This hypothesis was confirmed by RNA interference (RNAi) and transgenic complementation. Trichome deficiency in RNAi lines was associated with increased efficiency of grain packaging but did not affect the main agronomic traits.

Key Words: Yunnan Nuda rice; Nuda/glabrous; map-based cloning; WUSCHEL-like homeobox gene OsWOX3B.