Overexpression of starch branching enzyme 1 gene improves eating quality in japonica rice

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Eating quality of rice attracts more and more attention from rice-eating consumers in the recent years. Thus, improvement of eating quality of cooked rice has become one of the most important breeding goals in japonica rice. Here, the generation of transgenic japonica rice with improved eating quality and grain yield are reported. Overexpression of OsSbe1 gene encoding rice starch branching enzyme 1 was driven by 35S promoter. Eleven independent homozygous T3 transgenic lines were characterized and had shown higher palatability (71.2 ~ 72.6) than wild type Gopum (70.4). Moreover, transgenic rice lines showed an increase in 1000-grain weight and number of spikelets per panicle compared with the wild type. The yield of milled rice was 562.8 ~ 596.7 kg/10a in eight T3 lines, but 542.1 kg/10a in wild type. Gene expression analyses in mRNA transcription and enzyme activity levels suggest that improved eating quality is due to the up-regulation of OsSbe1 gene.