TY  - EJOU
AU  - Liu, Shaochun 
AU  - Hu, Jiamin 
AU  - He, Haohua 
AU  - Fu, Junru 
AU  - Jie, Xu 
AU  - Zhou, Dahu 
AU  - Fu, Haihui 

TI  - Intron Retention Fine-Tunes the Resistance of the Rice Mutant <i>pls4</i> to Rice Sheath Blight (<i>Rhizotonia solani</i> AG I.1a)
T2  - Phyton-International Journal of Experimental Botany

PY  - 2023
VL  - 92
IS  - 7
SN  - 1851-5657

AB  - <i>OsPLS4</i> encodes a β-ketoacyl carrier protein reductase (KAR). The role of <i>OsPLS4</i> in rice sheath blight (<i>Rhizoctonia solani</i>) remains unclear. Our preliminary studies showed that premature leaf senescence mutants (<i>pls4</i>) were highly susceptive to sheath blight in the early stage of rice development. To explore the role of this gene in the development of rice sheath blight, the transcriptome profiles of the rice <i>pls4</i> mutant and wild type were compared by RNA-seq. The results revealed 2,569 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The down-regulated genes were significantly enriched in the defense response-related biological processes. These down-regulated genes included the chitinase genes and <i>WRKY</i> genes, which were significantly changed in <i>pls4</i> mutants. Furthermore, 467 genes induced significant alternative splicing (AS) events. Among them, intron retention (IR) affected gene expression levels and functions of the vitamin B6 (VB6) metabolism pathway related to sheath blight. This result suggests that IR plays an important role in the sheath blight resistance of mutant pls4. Together, these results indicate that <i>pls4</i> could be involved in the biological process of sheath blight via DEGs and the fine-tuning of IR. The present study provides a molecular basis for further investigation of the resistance of rice to sheath blight.
KW  - Alternative splicing; intron retention; RNA-sequencing; rice sheath blight; vitamin B6 metabolism

DO  - 10.32604/phyton.2023.028296