Browsing by Author "Stanic, Matija"

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    Increasing Reproductive Output of Brassica napus (canola) Through Manipulation of Shoot Architecture
    (2019-11) Stanic, Matija; Samuel, Marcus A.; Ro, Dae-Kyun; Muench, Douglas G.
    Food security and yield increases of important crops is of paramount concern to an ever-increasing human population. A key determinant of yield in plants is shoot architecture which is controlled through a complex interplay between endogenous and exogenous signals and exhibits high plasticity throughout a plant’s lifetime. Strigolactones (SL) are a class of terpenoid lactone plant hormones which have recently been characterized as key regulators of shoot development. Mutants in this pathway exhibit various developmental deviations, most notably a dwarfed and highly branched shoot architecture. Canola transgenic lines suppressed in key SL biosynthetic and signalling components were generated to assess effects on architecture. Lines suppressed in the SL receptor, BnD14, displayed reductions in overall shoot height as well as an increase in lateral branching. This was accompanied by an increase in total flowers per plant. Consistent with this, BnD14 knockout lines generated through a CRISPR/Cas9-mediated system also exhibited a dwarf, highly branched phenotype with significant increases in total flowers per plant. This study provides evidence of the potential use of the SL pathway in future crop modifications to promote increased crop yield.