A Novel Rice Spotted-leaf Gene Found in Rice

Scientists from the China National Rice Research Institute led by Jian-Li Wu isolated a rice spotted-leaf mutant from a mutant bank. The mutant (spotted-leaf30 or spl30) had normal green leaf color when under shade but had red-brown lesions when exposed to natural summer field conditions. When the intensity of the light and temperature were increased, more lesions were formed but cell death did not occur in the lesions. Chlorophyll content was lower in the mutant than in the wild type, but no difference in ratio of chlorophyll a/b was found. This implied that there was damage in chlorophyll biosynthesis or degradation. No significant difference was found in the disease reaction patterns of mutant plants when exposed to rice bacterial blight pathogen, Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae.

Results of the genetic analysis showed that the mutation was controlled by a recessive gene temporarily labeled as spl30(t). According to the researchers, this gene is a novel rice spotted-leaf gene since there are no other genes found close to the chromosomal region.

Read the abstract at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-7909.2011.01056.x/abstract.