Figure 7.

Ectopic expression of TaSPL3 affected stem and leaf development in transgenic rice plants: (A) Morphological differences were observed between TaSPL3-OE transgenic lines (here, line L-1 as a representative) and wild-type rice (WT). Plant height and flag leaf size of TaSPL3-OE transgenic rice plants. (B–F) Detailed comparison of stem length and the number of internodes between TaSPL3-OE transgenic lines and WT shows that both the internode lengths (E) and stem diameters (F) in transgenic rice plants were significantly shorter than those in WT, leading to shorter plant heights of the transgenic plants (C). Tiller numbers of the TaSPL3-OE transgenic lines did not differ from WT (D). The length (E) and diameter (F) of each internode (I to V) were compared. Morphological comparison and detailed measurements showed that both the flag leaf length (G, I) and flag leaf width (H, J) in TaSPL3-OE transgenic lines were significantly lower than those in WT, leading to decreased flag leaf areas (K) in TaSPL3-OE transgenic lines. Statistical differences of the traits were determined using Tukey’s test, with mean values marked with different letters differing significantly (p < 0.05) among the lines. For figure (E) and F, * and ** indicates significant differences in stem lengths or diamters at p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively, compared to those of the wildtype plants (determined by Student’s t-test).