Prime Editing in Rice Leads to Broad-spectrum Bacterial Blight Resistance

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences reported the successful use of a prime editing system to confer a broad-spectrum resistance to bacterial blight in rice. The findings are published in an open-access report in New Plant Protection.

Rice bacterial blight is a devastating disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), which can hack the rice plant's DNA to make it susceptible. While some rice strains contain a defense gene called Xa23, the particular rice variety used in the study had a non-functional Xa23 because of some errors. To correct these errors, the experts used the ScCas9 prime editing tool without the need to add any foreign DNA. These changes led to rice plants with strong resistance to diverse Xoo strains.

Based on the findings, the use of prime editing is an efficient method to rapidly improve commercial rice varieties to resist bacterial blight without sacrificing yield traits or introducing foreign genetic material.

Read more findings from New Plant Protection.