背景回顾：Increasing production efficiency is a top priority in agriculture. Optimal plant architecture is the biological basis of dense planting, high crop yield and labour cost savings, and is thus critical for improving agricultural productivity. 

提出问题：In cucurbit crops, most species have elongated internodes, but the path to architecture improvement is still not clear. 

结果1-灌木状新种质：Here we identified a pumpkin accession with a dominant bushy trait, and found that the associated Bush locus harbours a cucurbit-conserved cis-regulatory element in the 5’ untranslated region of a transcription factor gene YABBY1. 

结果2-遗传变异与茎长变异：In cucurbit crops, various B-region deletions enhance the translation of YABBY1, with consequent proportional suppression of stem length in a dose-dependent manner.  

结果3-增产和节约劳动力：Depending on different cultivation patterns, the precise deployment of these alleles has significant effects on yield improvement or labour cost saving. 

结论：Our findings demonstrate that the engineering of the YABBY1 B-region is an efficient strategy to customize plant architecture in cucurbit crops.

 摘 要 

提高生产效率是农业的重中之重。最优植物株型是密植、高产和节省劳动力成本的生物学基础，因此对提高农业生产力至关重要。在葫芦科作物中，大多数植物都有细长的节间，但株型结构改良的途径仍不清楚。本文中，作者鉴定了一个具有明显灌木状（bushy）特征的南瓜种质，并发现相关的Bush位点包含一个转录因子YABBY1基因5’-UTR区中的葫芦科保守的顺式调控元件。在葫芦科作物中，各种B-region删除明显增强YABBY11的翻译，从而以一种剂量依赖的方式成比例地抑制茎长。根据不同的栽培模式，这些等位基因的精确配置对提高产量或节省劳动力成本具有显著影响。本文的研究结果表明，通过基因工程编辑YABBY1基因B-region是定制葫芦科作物株型结构的有效策略。