Identifying aluminum tolerance in rice with a molecular marker

Improving rice aluminum (Al) tolerance in acid soils is highly significant to rice production. So far, no molecular marker which can efficiently identify rice Al tolerance has been developed. In this study, Art1, a primer specific for the ART1 gene was designed to study whether some natural variations exist in ART1 between Al tolerant and sensitive varieties. The results showed that two Al tolerant varieties had identical nucleotides and amino acids, while three Al sensitive varieties had the same nucleotides and amino acids differing from the two Al tolerant varieties. The same results were discovered within 150 rice varieties of Ting’s core collection. Art1 could be used to judge rice Al tolerance.