A chloroplast localized heavy metal-associated domain containing protein regulates grain calcium accumulation in rice.

Calcium (Ca) is an essential mineral nutrient and plays a crucial signaling role in all living organisms. Increasing Ca content in staple foods such as rice is vital for improving Ca nutrition of humans. Here we map a quantitative trait locus that controls Ca concentration in rice grains and identify the causal gene as GCSC1 (Grain Ca and Sr Concentrations 1), which encodes a chloroplast vesicle localized homo-oligomeric protein. GCSC1 exhibits Ca²⁺ transport activity in heterologous assays in yeast and Xenopus laevis oocytes and is involved in the efflux of Ca²⁺ from the chloroplast to the cytosol. Knockout of GCSC1 results in increased chloroplast Ca concentration, lower stomatal conductance in leaves and enhanced Ca allocation to grains. Natural variation in grain Ca concentration is attributed to the variable expression of GCSC1 resulting from its promoter sequence variation. Our study identifies a chloroplast localized heavy metal-associated domain containing protein that regulates chloroplast Ca²⁺ efflux and provides a way to biofortify Ca in rice to benefit human nutrition.