Pike, a rice blast resistance allele consisting of two adjacent NBS–LRR genes, was identified as a novel allele at the Pik locus

Abstract

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) blast caused by fungus Magnaporthe oryzae is one of the most devastating diseases throughout the world. In the current study, a rice blast resistance gene, designated as Pike, was identified from an indica breeding line Xiangzao143 conferring a durable resistance to rice blast. A map-based cloning strategy was then employed to locate Pike to a 306-kb genomic interval in proximity of the telomeric region of the long arm of chromosome 11. Candidate gene analysis and transgenic complementation test demonstrated that two Xiangzao143-derived adjacent CC–NBS–LRR genes (Pike-1 and Pike-2) at the previously identified Pik locus were required for the Pike-mediated resistance. As compared to the previously identified Pik alleles, the putative Pike-1 peptide was found to be unique in three highly polymorphic sites, two amino acid residue sites (D153 and D229) in the CC domain and one site (L442-W443-P465) in the NBS domain. In addition, against a set of 215 M. oryzae isolates collected from diverse rice cropping areas of China, the Pike carrier Xiangzao143 showed a unique resistance spectrum and a high resistance frequency of 86.1 %. These results thus declared Pike as a novel allele of the Pik locus. Two SNPs G1328C and A3017T in Pike DNA sequence were identified and based on the SNPs, two Pike-specific dCAPS markers d-G1328C and d-A3017T were developed and have been used to effectively distinguish Pike from all of the previously identified Pik alleles.