Abstract
Approximately 21,000 of the Rice-Arabidopsis FOX transgenic Arabidopsis lines have been screened for resistance by dip inoculation with Colletotrichum higginsianum, a fungal pathogen of Arabidopsis. The identities of the overexpressed genes were determined in 112 lines that showed consistent resistance after four independent screens. The rice cDNAs identified by this procedure have been re-transformed into Arabidopsis for overexpression and further screening to confirm the disease resistant phenotypes. At present, at least 24 rice cDNAs endowed resistance to C. higginsianum in re-transformed Arabidopsis. We further investigated disease resistance to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 in the 112 lines, 18 lines showed high resistance and 24 lines showed moderate resistance, respectively. Ten of the genes that showed resistance to C. higginsianum have been re-introduced and overexpressed in wild-type rice and evaluated for resistance to Magnaporthe grisea. At present, three transgenic rice lines showed resistance to M. grisea. In addition, we will report on the molecular mechanism of disease resistance in Arabidopsis and rice by the genes that endowed resistance.
