LAUSR

Bacterial blight (BB) caused by Xanthomonas oryzae Pv. oryzae (Xoo) is one of the most serious diseases of rice worldwide. Oryza officinalis Wall ex Watt, harboring abundant genetic diversity and disease resistance features, are important resources of exploring resistance genes with broad-spectrum resistance to BB. However, the molecular mechanisms and genes of BB resistance in O. officinalis have been rarely explored. Here, the BB resistance of four different origin O. officinalis populations in Yunnan were identified by seven representative hypervirulent Xoo races, which exhibited different BB resistance among four populations, in which the BB resistance of the Gengma_Lincang population was the strongest. In addition, the pathogenetic ability of seven Xoo races to O. officinalis was different in that the pathogenicity of PXO99 was stronger than that of C5. There were no remarkable differences in leaf microstructures among four O. officinalis populations, revealing the differences in resistance of four O. officinalis to BB are caused by the endogenous resistance genes. Furthermore, our results proved that there were no nine cloned BB resistance genes in four populations but possessed dominant Xa5, dominant Xa13, and recessive xa3/xa26 homologous alleles of xa5, xa13, and Xa3/Xa26 resistance genes. These three homologous genes were isolated and cloned from four populations and named OoXa5, OoXa13, and Ooxa3/xa26. The expression profile revealed that the expression levels of OoXa13 and Ooxa3/xa26 were significantly down-regulated under PXO99 and C5 stress, especially in the Gengma_Lincang population, suggesting the O. officinalis might enhance BB resistance by down-regulating the expression level of OoXa13 and Ooxa3/xa26. The BB resistance genes of O. officinalis had its own characteristics by expression pattern and BLAST analysis of OoXa5, OoXa13, and Ooxa3/xa26, which indicated that there might be new genes or molecular mechanism of BB resistance in O. officinalis. Our studies provided a solid foundation and reference for revealing the molecular mechanism of BB resistance in O. officinalis.