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Lesion mimic mutants (LMMs) are plants that spontaneously form lesions without pathogen infection or external stimulus and exhibit resistance to pathogens. Here, a rice LMM was created by ethyl methane sulfonate mutagenesis, named as hpil (hydrogen peroxide induced lesion). Diaminobenzidine and trypan blue staining showed that large amounts of H2O2 were produced and cell death was occurred at and around the parts of lesion mimic in the rice leaves. The phenotype of hpil is controlled by a single recessive gene, localized at a 2 Mb interval on chromosome 2. The data suggested that hpil is a novel LMM with enhanced bacterial and fungal disease resistance, and multiple pathogenesis-related proteins (PRs) were up-regulated. The proteomes of leaves at three positions (different degrees of lesion mimic severity) were characterized in hpil compared with its wild type plant. Differentially expressed proteins were detected by two dimensional difference gel electrophoresis and 274 proteins were identified by MALDI TOF/TOF™. These proteins were related to metabolic process, cellular process and response to stimulus, with mostly down-regulated in hpil leaves. Many of these proteins were related to the Calvin cycle, photosynthetic electron transport chain, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and phosphonates pathways. Some resistance-related proteins including 14-3-3 proteins, OsPR10 and antioxidases such as peroxidase, superoxide dismutase and ascorbate peroxidase were up-regulated in leaves with lesion mimic. These results provide the foundation for cloning of the target gene and shed light on the mechanism involved in autoimmunity of rice.

Bacterial blight (BB) of rice caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) is one of the most serious bacterial diseases that hinder the normal growth and production of rice, which greatly reduces the quality and yield of rice. The effect of traditional methods such as chemical control is often not ideal. A series of production practices have shown that among the numerous methods for BB controlling, breeding and using resistant varieties are the most economical, effective, and environmentally friendly, and the important basis for BB resistance breeding is the exploration of resistance genes and their functional research. So far, 44 rice BB resistance genes have been identified and confirmed by international registration or reported in journals, of which 15 have been successfully cloned and characterized. In this paper, research progress in recent years is reviewed mainly on the identification, map-based cloning, molecular resistance mechanism, and application in rice breeding of these BB resistance genes, and the future influence and direction of the remained research for rice BB resistance breeding are also prospected.

P3N-PIPO (P3 N-terminal fused with Pretty Interesting Potyviridae ORF), the movement protein of potyviruses, is expressed as a translational fusion with the N-terminus of P3 in potyviruses. As reported in previous studies, P3N-PIPO is expressed via transcriptional slippage at a conserved G2A6 slippery site in the genus Potyvirus. However, it is still unknown whether a similar expression mechanism of P3N-PIPO is used in the other genera of the family Potyviridae. Moreover, due to the extremely low expression level of P3N-PIPO in natural virus-infected plants, the peptides spanning the slippery site which provide direct evidence of the slippage at the protein level, have not been identified yet. In this study, a potato virus X (PVX)-based expression vector was utilized to investigate the expression mechanism of P3N-PIPO. A high expression level of the P3N-PIPO(WT) of turnip mosaic virus (TuMV, genus Potyvirus) was observed based on the PVX expression vector. For the first time, we successfully identified the peptides of P3N-PIPO spanning the slippery site by mass spectrometry. Likewise, the P3N-PIPO(WT) of wheat yellow mosaic virus (WYMV, genus Bymovirus) was also successfully expressed using the PVX expression vector. Integrated proteome and transcriptome analyses revealed that WYMV P3N-PIPO was expressed at the conserved G2A6 site through transcriptional slippage. Moreover, as revealed by mutagenesis analysis, Hexa-adenosine of the G2A6 site was important for the frameshift expression of P3N-PIPO in WYMV. According to our results, the PVX-based expression vector might be used as an excellent tool to study the expression mechanism of P3N-PIPO in Potyviridae. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental evidence for the expression mechanism of P3N-PIPO in the genus Bymovirus, the only genus comprising bipartite virus species in the family Potyviridae.