Food Security: Researchers Discover Gene for Resistance Against a Disease That Ravages Rice and Wheat Crops

Blast disease, caused by the fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, is a veritable plague in agriculture. In addition to devastating rice crops—the staple food of 60% of the world's population—it began attacking wheat in the 1980s, across a growing area of distribution and with a serious risk of emergence in Europe.

In this context, researchers from INRAE, CIRAD and the Université de Montpellier, together with scientists from China and the Philippines, analyzed the molecular mechanisms behind a natural resistance to blast found in rice. They identified Ptr, a new type of disease resistance gene in plants. The presence of this Ptr gene makes rice immune to strains of M. oryzae that secrete AVR-Pita virulence factor, a protein that, in the absence of this gene, helps the pathogenic fungus invade the plant.

The study is published in the journal Nature Plants.

The majority of resistance genes in plants code for antenna-like receptors (proteins) that recognize chemical signals emitted by pathogens.

Ptr, however, codes for a new type of protein, not previously known to be active in plant immune systems. Scientists do not yet understand how this protein works. Unexpectedly, this research invalidates previous reference studies, published in 2000, that reported that another gene named Pi-ta and coding for a conventional type of immune receptor was responsible for AVR-Pita detection.