Natural variation of codon repeats in COLD11 endows rice with chilling resilience

Abnormal temperature caused by global climate change threatens the rice production. Defense signaling network for chilling has been uncovered in plants. However, less is known about repairing DNA damage produced from overwhelmed defense and its evolution during domestication. Here, we genetically identified a major QTL, COLD11, using the data-merging genome-wide association study based on an algorithm combining polarized data from two subspecies, indica and japonica, into one system. Rice loss-of-function mutations of COLD11 caused reduced chilling tolerance. Genome evolution analysis of representative rice germplasms suggested that numbers of GCG sequence repeats in the first exon of COLD11 were subjected to strong domestication selection during the northern expansion of rice planting. The repeat numbers affected the biochemical activity of DNA repair protein COLD11/RAD51A1 in renovating DNA damage under chilling stress. Our findings highlight a potential way to finely manipulate key genes in rice genome and effectively improve chilling tolerance through molecular designing.