As one of the most important food crops in the world, rice yield is directly related to national food security. Lodging is one of the most important factors restricting rice production, and the cultivation of rice varieties with lodging resistance is of great significance in rice breeding. The lodging resistance of rice is directly related to the mechanical strength of the stalks. In this paper, we reviewed the cell wall structure, its components, and its genetic regulatory mechanism, which improved the regulatory network of rice stalk mechanical strength. Meanwhile, we analyzed the new progress in genetic breeding and put forward some scientific problems that need to be solved in this field in order to provide theoretical support for the improvement and application of rice breeding.

Fatty acid composition and its proportions are critical to the nutritional value and storage quality of rice (Oryza sativa L.) as the third major nutrient component in this staple food. This study involved crossing an indica rice variety, Huazhan (HZ), as the male parent, with a japonica variety, Nekken2, as the female parent, to produce the F1 generation. Subsequently, a population of 120 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was developed through multiple generations of self-breeding. By utilizing a high-density molecular genetic linkage map and phenotypic data of four fatty acid components, we identified a total of 14 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) related to fatty acid composition across chromosomes 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9. These included two QTLs for C₁₄ content, three for C_16:0 content, six for C_18:1 content, and three for C_18:2 content. Notably, the QTL qCOPT4.2 exhibited a high LOD score of 5.22. Within QTL intervals, genes such as OsACX3 and SLG affecting grain length were identified. The expression of candidate genes within these intervals was assessed and further analyzed by using quantitative real-time PCR. Genes such as LOC_Os01g15000, LOC_Os04g47120, LOC_Os04g49194, LOC_Os06g22080, LOC_Os06g23870, LOC_Os06g24704, LOC_Os06g30780, LOC_Os08g44840, and LOC_Os09g36860 were found to regulate fatty acid synthesis or metabolic pathways, potentially enhancing fatty acid content in rice. These QTLs are indispensable for breeding rice varieties with improved fatty acid profiles, offering new genetic resources for enhancing the nutritional and storage qualities of rice.

High temperatures seriously threaten the global yield of maize. The objectives of the present study were to explore the key candidate gene involved in heat shock responses in maize and its potential biological function to heat stress. Here, we identified a Class C heat shock factor, ZmHSF21, from maize leaves and used molecular biological and plant physiological assays to investigate its roles in transgenic Arabidopsis. ZmHSF21 encodes a putative protein of 388 amino acids. We showed that ZmHSF21 was expressed in most tissues of maize with relatively high expression in leaves and silks but rather low in roots and stalks, and its expression level in leaves was significantly up-regulated by heat treatment. We also showed that overexpression of ZmHSF21 in Arabidopsis significantly improved the seed germination frequency and plant survival rate when exposed to heat stress. We demonstrated that, compared with wild-type plants, the activities of peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and catalase increased while the reactive oxygen species accumulation decreased in ZmHSF21 overexpressors under heat stress conditions. We further demonstrated that ZmHSF21 promoted the transcriptional level of AtAPX2, AtGolS1, and several AtHSPs. Collectively, the first-class C HSF in maize (ZmHSF21) is cloned in this study, and the combined results suggest that ZmHSF21 is a positive regulator of heat shock response and can be applied to develop maize high-temperature-tolerant varieties for more yield.