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Transgenic strategies for
improving rice disease resistance
Huijuan Zhang, Guojun Li,
Wei Li and Fengming Song*
State Key
Laboratory for Rice Biology, Institute of Biotechnology,
Zhejiang University-Huajiachi Campus, Hangzhou, Zhejiang
310029, P.R. China.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
fmsong@zju.edu.cn.
Tel: 86 571 86971207. Fax: 086-0571-86049815.
Accepted
8 January, 2009 |
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Rice diseases are among the most significant limiting factors
threatening food productivity. Genetic engineering provides
promising strategies to develop and improve disease
resistance in rice. This mini-review summarizes the recent
progress on studies of genetic engineering for improvement
of rice disease resistance against fungal, bacterial and
viral pathogens. Improvement of virus resistance can be
achieved by generating transgenic rice lines with expression
of genes encoding viral coat protein or replication enzymes,
expression of RNA interference constructs and suppression of
insect vectors. Varieties with improved resistance against
fungal and bacterial pathogens can be developed through
transgenic expression of cloned disease resistance genes,
antimicrobial protein genes, and defense signaling genes or
through pyramiding different defense genes. Future direction
and strategies on genetic engineering of rice disease
resistance are also discussed.
Key
words:
Disease resistance, transgenic rice, genetic engineering. |
