Xiaofei Chen

TL;DR: A novel rice male sterile mutant, defective pollen wall3 (dpw3), which displays smaller and paler anthers with aborted pollen grains, revealed a novel and vital role of alpha integrin-like proteins, in plant male reproduction.

TL;DR: The data indicated that the CRISPR/Cas9 system is effective in producing homozygous mutants for functional analysis, but it may be not as precise as expected in rice, and that early and accurate molecular characterization and screening must be carried out for generations before transitioning of the CRisPR/ Cas9 system from laboratory to field.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors have generated loss-of-function and overexpression mutants of the paralogous OsMADS5 and OsMads34 genes in rice (Oryza sativa), and analyzed their panicle phenotypes.

TL;DR: In this paper, a quantitative trait locus (qPA1) associated with panicle architecture using chromosome segment substitution lines from parents Nipponbare and 9311 was found to have non-redundant functions during panicle development, likely due to differences in spatiotemporal expression.

TL;DR: A genome-scale gene expression resource covering the inflorescence-to-floret transition during early reproductive development is constructed, and it is demonstrated that a WOX transcription factor, DWARF TILLER1 (DWT1), regulates flower meristem activity.