Open Access

ARTICLE

Tritipyrum Aux/IAA13L Increases Chlorophyll Content and Yield in Wheat

Mutong Li^1,#, Xiaolian Yang^1,#, Zhishun Yu¹, Tingting Yuan¹, Wenjie Wang¹, Suqin Zhang^1,2,*, Guangdong Geng^1,*

1 College of Agricultural, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, China
2 Guizhou Subcenter of National Wheat Improvement Center, Guiyang, 550025, China

* Corresponding Authors: Suqin Zhang. Email: ; Guangdong Geng. Email:
# These authors contributed equally to this work as the first author

Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany 2025, 94(10), 3175-3188. https://doi.org/10.32604/phyton.2025.070731

Received 22 July 2025; Accepted 22 September 2025; Issue published 29 October 2025

Abstract

Wheat yield mainly depends on leaf photosynthesis and grain carbohydrate accumulation. The aux/indole-3-acetic acid 13-like (Aux/IAA13L) gene was successfully cloned from Tritipyrum ‘Y1805’ and transformed into common wheat. A bioinformatics analysis showed that the TtAux/IAA13L protein, encoding 232 amino acids, was hydrophilic and unstable. TtAux/IAA13L and Tel5E01G609500 were grouped together in a phylogenetic tree. The TtAux/IAA13L expression levels in the overexpression lines were higher than in the wild-type (WT) plants at five developmental stages: tillering, elongation, heading, flowering, and grain-filling. The expression levels in the overexpression lines first increased, peaked at the flowering stage, and then decreased. However, the expression level in WT plants changed little among the five stages. The chlorophyll contents, net photosynthetic rates, stomatal conductances, and transpiration rates of the overexpression lines were higher than in the WT plants. Compared with WT plants, plant height in the overexpression lines decreased, whereas stem diameter, flag leaf area, grain number per spike, 1000-grain weight, and grain yield per plant increased. The average grain yield per plant of two overexpression lines increased by 24.56% and 23.46%, compared with those of WT plants, in 2024 and 2025, respectively. In brief, the TtAux/IAA13L gene enhanced the chlorophyll content and flag leaf area, thereby increasing the net photosynthetic rate and grain yield per plant. Consequently, it could be used to breed high-yield wheat cultivars.

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Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material File

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