Enhanced sucrose loading improves rice yield by increasing grain size. Oryza sativa

Transgenic rice plants expressing the Arabidopsis phloem-specific sucrose transporter AtSUC2, which loads Suc into the phloem, showed an increase in grain yield of up to 16% relative to wild-type plants in field trials. The goal was to reveal how expressed AtSUC2 in rice leads to increased grain yield analyzing global gene expression. Overall design: Microarray analyses were performed on flag leaves and developing seeds between wild-type plants (WT) and transgenic plants (line 51) on the 10th day after fertilization, i.e. flag leaves of WT versus flag leaves of line 51; developing seeds of WT versus developing seeds of line 51. Three biological replicates were performed for flag leaves and developing seeds between WT and line 51.