Molecular Approaches for Disease Resistance in Rice

Abstract

Rice production needs to be sustained in the coming decades, with changing climatic conditions becoming more conducive to the prevalence of disease outbreaks. Major rice diseases collectively cause enormous economic damage and yield instability. Breeding for disease-resistant rice varieties could be one of the best options to counter these disease outbreaks. Disease-screening protocols and newer technologies are essential for effective phenotyping and would aid in gene discovery and function. Understanding the genetics of disease mechanisms and stacking of broad-spectrum disease-resistance genes could lead to faster development of rice varieties with multiple disease resistance. New molecular breeding approaches are discussed for the development of these varieties. The molecular biology of disease resistance is now better understood and could be well manipulated for improved resilience. Transgenic approaches for disease resistance are discussed. Genome-editing tools for the development of disease-resistant rice varieties are thoroughly discussed. The use of bioinformatics tools to speed up the process and to obtain a better understanding of molecular genetics mechanisms of disease resistance is explained.

Rice and food security: Climate change implications and the future prospects for nutritional security

“…To counter climatic barriers and combat disease outbreaks, breeding disease‐resistant rice varieties using the latest molecular tools and incorporating modern breeding techniques could be one of the best options (Figure 1). Researchers have already developed rice varieties against blast, bacterial blight (BB), bacterial leaf streak (BLS), tungro, false smut, sheath blight, and sheath rot, diseases which reduce yield up to 100% in some cases (Jamaloddin et al, 2021). A cost‐effective, robust, effective, and environmentally safe method is to deploy previously identified resistant genes to fight plant diseases and reduce output losses.…”

Ecological weed management and square planting influenced the weed management, and crop productivity in direct-seeded rice

“…India is a major producer and consumer of rice, accounting for 27.27% of the global rice cultivated area (45.07 million hectares) and 15.79% of production 2 . Global rice demand is expected to rise by more than 40% by 2050 to fulfil the needs of the world's growing population 3 . Transplanted rice is still the most common and traditional planting method in India, requiring a large amount of natural resources and nonrenewable energy sources.…”

Understanding the nature of blast resistance in combined bacterial leaf blight and blast gene pyramided lines of rice variety tellahamsa

“…As of now, 46 BLB resistance genes and 102rice blast resistance genes (R-genes) have been reported (5,6). Among these, ve genes viz., three genes for BLB (xa5, xa13 and Xa21) have been widely used in marker-assisted breeding and over 70 improved rice varieties or hybrid rice parental lines showing resistance against BB alone or in combination with genes/QTLs conferring tolerance to other stresses and two genes for blast (Pi1 and Pi54) have been reported to be effective in rice growing regions of India (5,7,8,9). Incorporation of these genes in the susceptible rice varieties will lead to resistance against blast and blight diseases.…”