Abstract
In rice, an efficient culture system using mature seeds has been established for some research model varieties such as Nipponbare (Japonica) and Kasalath (Indica). Conversely, some leading varieties used for food production such as Koshihikari (Japonica) and IR64 (Indica) have low regeneration ability. The regeneration ability mainly controlled by quantitative trait loci (QTLs), but no gene has yet been identified. To understand the regeneration process and to resolve the differences between the low regeneration ability of Koshihikari, and high regeneration varieties, we isolated a major QTL gene, PSR1. By using the PSR1 gene, we could gain the regeneration ability of Koshihikari and also demonstrated that the PSR1 gene serves as a new efficient selection marker for gene transformation. This new selection method uses neither any exogenous genes nor any chemicals for selection; hence it has big advantages in comparison to the previous system using antibiotic and herbicide resistant genes.
