The Family Has Been Diverged into and Type Resistance Genes against Rice Blast Disease.

Rice blast (the causative agent the fungus ) represents a major constraint on the productivity of one of the world's most important staple food crops. Genes encoding resistance have been identified in both the and subspecies genepools, and combining these within new cultivars represents a rational means of combating the pathogen. In this research, deeper allele mining was carried out on , , and via each comprehensive FNP marker set in three panels consisting of 70 and 58 cultivars. Within , three functional and one non-functional alleles were identified; the former were only identified in type entries. At , four functional and one non-functional alleles were identified; once again, all of the former were present in type entries. However, the pattern of variation at was rather different: here, the five functional alleles uncovered were dispersed across the type germplasm. Among all the twelve candidate functional alleles, both -ZS and -ZS were predominant. Furthermore, the resistance functions of both -ZS and -ZS were assured by transformation test. Profiting from the merits of three comprehensive FNP marker sets, the study has validated all three members of the family as having been strictly diverged into and subspecies: and were defined as type resistance genes, and as type. Rather limited genotypes of the family have been effective in both and rice groups, of which -ZS_-ZS has been central to the Chinese rice population.