AUTHOR=Wang Mengying , Dean Ralph A. 

TITLE=Host induced gene silencing of Magnaporthe oryzae by targeting pathogenicity and development genes to control rice blast disease

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.959641

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2022.959641

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>Rice blast disease caused by the hemi-biotrophic fungus <italic>Magnaporthe oryzae</italic> is the most destructive disease of rice world-wide. Traditional disease resistance strategies for the control of rice blast disease have not proved durable. HIGS (host induced gene silencing) is being developed as an alternative strategy. Six genes (<italic>CRZ1, PMC1, MAGB, LHS1, CYP51A, CYP51B</italic>) that play important roles in pathogenicity and development of <italic>M. oryzae</italic> were chosen for HIGS. HIGS vectors were transformed into rice calli through <italic>Agrobacterium</italic>-mediated transformation and T0, T1 and T2 generations of transgenic rice plants were generated. Except for <italic>PMC1 and LHS1</italic>, HIGS transgenic rice plants challenged with <italic>M. oryzae</italic> showed significantly reduced disease compared with non-silenced control plants. Following infection with <italic>M. oryzae</italic> of HIGS transgenic plants, expression levels of target genes were reduced as demonstrated by Quantitative RT-PCR. In addition, treating <italic>M. oryzae</italic> with small RNA derived from the target genes inhibited fungal growth. These findings suggest RNA silencing signals can be transferred from host to an invasive fungus and that HIGS has potential to generate resistant rice against <italic>M. oryzae</italic>.</p>