Rice Improves Grain YieldBreeding for disease resistance is the most
effective strategy to control diseases. However, knowledge on genes and
mechanism of broad-spectrum resistance and trade-off between defense and
growth in crops is limited. The team of Xin Yin from the Chinese Academy of
Sciences aimed to prove that rice copine genes OsBON1 and OsBON3 are
suppressors of immunity since both genes changed their protein localization
upon pathogen challenge.

Knockdown of OsBON1 and OsBON3 enhanced resistance to rice bacterial and
fungal pathogens. However, the defense activation in OsBON1 knockdown
mutants were associated with reduced growth. In contrast, overexpression of
either OsBON1 or OsBON3 decreased disease resistance, but promoted plant
growth.

This study shows that rice copine genes play a negative role in regulating
disease resistance and their expression level and protein location have a
large impact on the balance between immunity and agronomic traits.

[onlinelibrary.wiley.com]