Background: Light is a key regulatory signal for rice growth and development. Under dark stress, rice shows leaf yellowing. Whole genome transcriptomic analysis will identify differentially expressed genes (DEG) in dark-treated rice seedlings and DEG-enriched metabolic pathways. Rice leaf color is an essential agronomic trait. Traditional genetic experiments have reported over a hundred of leaf color control (LCC) genes and some of them were also regulated by light signal. Thus, an integrated analysis for the two set of data will be helpful for illustration of the mechanism for both dark-response and leaf color control.Results: Transcriptome changes in response to dark treatment were surveyed by RNA-Seq analysis. About 13,115 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. One hundred and fifty rice LCC genes were collected. It was found that 102 LCC genes (68.0%) were also dark-response DEGs, which suggests an overlap between dark response and LCC networks. Fifty DEG overlapped LCC genes was associated with chloroplast development. KEGG analysis revealed enrichment of LCC genes in porphyrin and chlorophyll metabolism (PCM) (18/44, 40.9%). Of the 18 LCC genes in the PCM pathway, 15 were dark-response DEGs (83.3%). More interestingly, all of them are involved in a central PCM sub-pathway, chlorophyll biosynthesis.Conclusions: Integrated analysis for dark stress-response and leaf color control identified the correlation between the two processes and mutually supported evidences were obtained. It was found that PCM pathway, particularly chlorophyll biosynthesis process, plays important roles in rice LCC and dark stress-response. This study provides important clues for understanding the mechanisms of dark response and leaf color control and identifying additional LCC genes.