Insertional Mutagenesis to Isolate Drought and Salinity Stress Tolerant Genes in Rice

Over 5,000 single insertion mutant rice lines have been generated at LIPI in collaboration with CSIRO, Australia and Wageningen University, the Netherlands. The insertion lines was generated on Japonica rice cv Nipponbare background using two sets of plasmids; activation tagging and gene-trap constructs. Single insertion lines were selected over multiple insertions to facilitate gene identification. The mutant library has been screened for drought and salt stress tolerant lines under 200g/L PEG6000 and 200mM NaCl, respectively. Potential drought tolerant mutant lines capable of germinating under PEG have been obtained and the putative responsible genes have been identified. Similarly, salt tolerant and sensitive mutants have been identified and some putative insertion sites responsible for the salt tolerant mutation have been identified. Gene isolations and functional analyses are underway. The 7th Rice Genetics Symposium