Jasmonic acid deficiency leads to scattered floret opening time in cytoplasmic male sterile rice Zhenshan 97A

Cytoplasmic male sterile (CMS) rice has been widely used for hybrid rice seed production in China. However, CMS rice suffers from undesirable flowering habits including scattered floret opening time (FOT), which causes different FOTs among parental rice plants and greatly reduces hybrid rice seed production. Little is known about the mechanism of scattered FOT in CMS rice. Our results demonstrate that scattered FOT in CMS rice Zhenshan 97A (ZS97A) resulted from the lack of a driving force to open florets, which was directly caused by retarded lodicule expansion. Our results indicate that retarded lodicule expansion in ZS97A was caused by reduced water accumulation due to retarded accumulation of osmotic regulation substances (ORSs). Further, the retardation in accumulation of ORSs and water were caused by jasmonic acid (JA) deficiency, resulting from down-regulation of OsAOC expression. Applying JA restored scattered FOT in ZS97A by promoting ORS and water accumulation, and inducing the expansion of the lodicules. Taken together, JA deficiency inhibited lodicule expansion by retarding the accumulation of ORSs and water, leading to scattered FOT in CMS rice ZS97A.