Core Tips: From September 5th to 7th, 35 teachers and students from Huazhong Agricultural University(HZAU) went to Japan to participate in the 16th International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics (ISRFG). Professor Zhang Qifa was invited to give a keynote speech and three Professors Zhou Daoxiu, Chen Lingling and Yu Sibin gave speeches on the parallel sessions.
Nanhu Net News (Correspondent Yang Jun) From September 5th to 7th, held in Tokyo, Japan, the 16th International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics attracted about 300 scholars and representatives from over 20 countries and regions(including China, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brazil and France). Numerous topics were discussed, such as molecular breeding, abiotic stress and plant hormones, interaction of biological stress, genomics, genome genetics, epigenetics, nitrogen utilization and heavy metals, gene editing, diversity in plant evolution. With a total of 22 invited speeches and 49 speeches in parallel sessions, the meeting lasted for 3 days, and 35 students and teachers from our university attended it.
In the main session, invited Professor Zhang Qifa from HZAU made a special report on "Grain size regulation in rice: the romance of three G proteins" and expounded the regulatory network and biological mechanisms of how G protein regulated the seed grain to the relevant scholars. The results of the research provided a new strategy to the improvements of rice yield and appearance quality traits.
In the parallel session on genomics and epigenetics, Professor Zhou Daoxiu's report "Interplay between chromatin modification, energy metabolism and epigenetic regulation of rice plant adaption to environment" systematically introduced histone acetylation and deacetylation, histone methyl, the role of DNA methylation in rice development and metabolism, and the function of new histone modification butyrylation and crotonylation in rice’s response to changes in energy states.
In the parallel session on Genome Project, Professor Chen Lingling's report "Rice Information GataWay (RIGW) and CRISPR-P genome editing tools in plants" elaborated on RIGW, an information platform for genome biology of indica rice and CRISPR-P 2.0 tools. RIGW could provide rice researchers with rich genome and other histological data through intuitive network interface.
In another parallel session on plant flowering and development, Professor Yu Sibin's report "Hairy Leaf 6, an AP2/ERFtranscription factor, interacts with OsWOX3B and regulates trichome formation in rice" demonstrated the regulation mechanism of HL6 and OsWOX3B involving the trichome formation of rice mediated by auxin.
During the symposium, 133 posters were displayed. The good news was that the posters of Dr. Wang Nili, Dr. Lu Yue and Dr. Zhou Hao from our university won the "Best Academic Wall Report Award", with their respective studies: "Conservation and differentials of the Salt Overly Sensitive (SOS) pathway in rice", "DDM1 represses noncoding RNA expression and RNA-directed DNA methylation in heterochromatin", "Genome-wide association analysis reveal the genetic basis of stigma Exsertion in rice".
Reviewer: Xiong Lizhong
Relative Information: As an important international symposium in the field of rice research, International Symposium on Rice Functional Genomics(ISRFG) is co-launched by worldwide rice scientists. It is an annual event with the history of 16 years, among which Shanghai held the 1st symposium and HZAU held the 13th one. Offering a well-communicated platform to researchers, ISRFG has witnessed the creation of series of major achievements in relevant field, and thus become an international regular symposium on rice and botany research.
