Grain shape and chalkiness are two important components of rice grain quality. Previous studies have characterized several important genes controlling grain shape traits and a few QTLs that are responsible for grain chalkiness. However, the genetic architecture of the two traits in hybrid rice remains not very clear. Recently, for genetic dissection of grain shape and chalkiness in hybrid rice, researchers from China National Rice Research Institute (CNRRI), Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology (SIPPE) and Shanghai Normal University selected 17 representative hybrid crosses and constructed large genetic populations consisting of totally 10074 F2 lines. They performed genome-wide high-resolution mapping for the traits of grain shape and grain chalkiness in hybrid rice using multiple collaborative populations for joint analyses. This research identified several genes or loci for grain shape and chalkiness, and established a genotype-based model for predicting grain appearance quality traits of indica hybrid rice. This research is of important significance for the discovery of excellent gene resources and molecular breeding of rice quality traits.

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91635302 and 91535202), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2016YFD0100902 and 2016YFD0101801), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA08020101) and Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund (Y2017JC08). The research findings have been published in Molecular Plant online on August 10, 2017 (DOI:  10.1016/j.molp.2017.07.014). More details are available on the link below: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674205217302319?via=ihub.