Jiao Tong team produces blight-resistant rice
Chen Gongyou, a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, shows the rice variety (right) developed by his team using gene-editing technology to improve resistance to bacterial leaf blight and a variety (left) affected by the disease.
A rice variety resistant to bacterial leaf blight (BLB) disease has been developed by a team from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
The gene-edited rice plant not only protects production, but also reduces pesticide use and labour costs.
BLB is one of the most destructive diseases in rice, cutting production by some 10 to 50 percent or more.
Using pesticides to control the disease not only causes pollution, but also leads to drug resistance.
The team, led by Professor Chen Gongyou, said it have used gene-editing technology to block recognition codes between pathogen effector proteins and BLB-susceptibility genes in rice.
Their findings have been published in “Molecular Plant,” an international plant science journal.
The team is now applying the variety as parents for rice hybrids with improved BLB-resistance to produce genetically stable varieties.
“Planting these varieties, farmers will not need to use pesticides and the economic and labor costs will also be saved,” said Chen. “It means that people need not worry about food safety in the future.”
