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WRI Webinar: Dr Guotian Li, Huazhong Agricultural University
Oct 26, 2022, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
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Dr Guotian Li, –Huazhong Agricultural University, China
Genome editing of a rice CDP-DAG synthase confers broad-spectrum disease resistance
WHEN: Wednesday 26th October 2022, 1pm
Abstract
The discovery and application of genome editing introduce a new era of plant breeding, giving researchers new tools for the precise engineering of crop genomes. Here, we demonstrate the power of genome editing for engineering broad-spectrum disease resistance in rice. We first isolated a lesion mimic mutant (LMM) from a mutagenized rice population, demonstrated that a 29-bp deletion in a gene we named RESISTANCE TO BLAST1 (RBL1) caused this phenotype and showed that this mutation also caused a ca. 20-fold reduction in yield. RBL1 encodes a cytidine diphosphate diacylglycerol (CDP-DAG) synthase required for phospholipid biosynthesis. Mutation of RBL1 results in reduced levels of phosphatidylinositol (PI) and its derivatives PIPs and PIP2, including PI(4,5)P2. Rice PI(4,5)P2 is highly concentrated in structures associated with fungal infection and effector secretion, likely working as a disease susceptibility factor. Using targeted mutagenesis, we obtained an allele of RBL1, named RBL12, which confers broad-spectrum resistance with no yield penalty. Because RBL1 is highly conserved in plants, editing of RBL1 homologs is likely applicable to diverse crops species.
About the speaker
Guotian Li, PhD, Professor of Plant Pathology at Huazhong Agricultural University, China. His lab is mainly focused on rice-microbe interactions. Before joining Huazhong Agricultural University, Guotian got his PhD at Purdue University, USA, under Prof. Jin-Rong Xu’s supervision, working on molecular plant pathology of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. After his PhD, he pursued a postdoc in Prof. Pam Ronald’s lab at UC Davis/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, primarily on rice genomics and immunity. Prof. Li has published more than 20 peer-reviewed papers in journals including the Plant Cell, Molecular Plant, Molecular Plant Pathology, Environmental Microbiology, and Current opinion in Microbiology.
Register at: https://adelaide.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_197NmGiQRtaGOTTBXLCgHA