Studying PR2 and PAL genes involvement in rice resistance against Acidovorax avenae subsp. Avenae

Abstract

Plant diseases are one of the major constraints of agricultural productions. Rice bacterial brown stripe, caused by Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae is recognized by producing water-soaked and brown stripes on leaves and sheaths of rice seedlings in nursery. Plants have several acquired defense mechanisms to deal with pests and pathogens. The rice plant resistance genes (R genes), such as pathogenesis related proteins play an important role in rice-pathogen interactions. This research aimed to study the role of PR2 and PAL pathogenesis related genes in local Tarom and Sahel Rice cultivars inoculated with an incompatible strain of bacterial brown stripe using the Quantitative Real-time PCR technique. Sampling of leaves inoculated with bacterial suspensions was performed at different time courses. Total RNA extracted from samples then complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesized and target genes expression level were evaluated. The results of this study showed that the expression level of PR2 and PAL genes has greatly increased in Sahel resistant cultivar in comparison to Tarom susceptible cultivar. Increased expression level of the aforesaid genes, proves the role of these genes in resistance of rice plants against bacterial brown stripe disease.

Keywords

• rna
• rice
• gene expression
• resistance
• real-time pcr