Rice is an important source of calories and mineral nutrients for more than half of the world's population. The accumulation of essential and toxic mineral elements in rice grain affects its nutritional quality and safety. However, the patterns and processes by which different elements progressively accumulate during grain filling remain largely unknown. In the present study, we investigated temporal changes in dry matter, elemental concentrations, and the transcriptome in the grain of field-grown rice. We also investigated the effects of seed setting rate and the position of grain within rice panicle on element accumulation. Three different patterns of accumulation were observed: (i) elements including K, Mn, B, and Ca showed an early accumulation pattern; (ii) dry matter and elements including N, P, S, Mg, Cu, Zn, Mo, As, and Cd showed a mid-accumulation pattern; and (iii) elements such as Fe showed a gradual increase pattern. These different accumulation patterns can be explained by the differences in the biogeochemical behavior of the various elements in the soil, as well as differences in plant nutrient redistribution, gene expression, and the sink-source relationship. These results improve our knowledge of the dynamics of elemental accumulation in rice grain and are helpful for identification of functional genes mediating the translocation of elements to grain.
The concentration, chemical speciation, and spatial distribution of essential and toxic mineral elements in cereal seeds have important implications for human health. To identify genes responsible for element uptake, translocation, and storage, high throughput phenotyping methods are needed to visualize element distribution and concentration in seeds. Here, we used X-ray fluorescence microscopy (μ-XRF) as a method for rapid and high-throughput phenotyping of seed libraries and developed an ImageJ-based pipeline to analyze the spatial distribution of elements. Using this method, we non-destructively scanned 4,190 ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)-mutagenized M1 rice (Oryza sativa) seeds and 533 diverse rice accessions in a Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) panel to simultaneously measure concentrations and spatial distribution of elements in the embryo, endosperm, and aleurone layer. A total of 692 putative mutants and 65 loci associated with the spatial distribution of elements in rice seed were identified. This powerful method provides a basis for investigating the genetics and molecular mechanisms controlling the accumulation and spatial variations of mineral elements in plant seeds.
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