Yadav MK, Aravindan S, Ngangkham U, Raghu S, Prabhukarthikeyan SR, Keerthana U, Marndi BC, Adak T, Munda S, Deshmukh R, Pramesh D, Samantaray S, Rath PC.

PLoS One. 2019 Jan 23;14(1):e0211061. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211061. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Understanding of genetic diversity is important to explore existing gene in any crop breeding program. Most of the diversity preserved in the landraces which are well-known reservoirs of important traits for biotic and abiotic stresses. In the present study, the genetic diversity at twenty-four most significant blast resistance gene loci using twenty-eight gene specific markers were investigated in landraces originated from nine diverse rice ecologies of India. Based on phenotypic evaluation, landraces were classified into three distinct groups: highly resistant (21), moderately resistant (70) and susceptible (70). The landraces harbour a range of five to nineteen genes representing blast resistanceallele with the frequency varied from 4.96% to 100%. The cluster analysis grouped entire 161 landraces into two major groups. Population structure along with other parameters was also analyzed to understand the evolution of blast resistance gene in rice. The population structure analysis and principal coordinate analysis classified the landraces into two sub-populations. Analysis of molecular variance showed maximum (93%) diversity within the population and least (7%) between populations. Five markers viz; K3957, Pikh, Pi2-i, RM212and RM302 were strongly associated with blast disease with the phenotypic variance of 1.4% to 7.6%. These resistant landraces will serve as a valuable genetic resource for future genomic studies, host-pathogen interaction, identification of novel R genes and rice improvement strategies.

See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30673751

Figure 1: Diagrammatic representation of rice landraces belonged to different states of India. (161 landraces from all over India, representing nine states was screened for their leaf blast resistance under natural condition in the Uniform Blast Nursery (UBN) at the experimental farm of ICAR–NRRI, Cuttack)