Genome editing of a rice CDP-DAG synthase confers multipathogen resistance

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 618; no. 7967; pp. 1017 - 1023
• Main Authors: Sha, Gan, Sun, Peng, Kong, Xiaojing, Han, Xinyu, Sun, Qiping, Fouillen, Laetitia, Zhao, Juan, Li, Yun, Yang, Lei, Wang, Yin, Gong, Qiuwen, Zhou, Yaru, Zhou, Wenqing, Jain, Rashmi, Gao, Jie, Huang, Renliang, Chen, Xiaoyang, Zheng, Lu, Zhang, Wanying, Qin, Ziting, Zhou, Qi, Zeng, Qingdong, Xie, Kabin, Xu, Jiandi, Chiu, Tsan-Yu, Guo, Liang, Mortimer, Jenny C., Boutté, Yohann, Li, Qiang, Kang, Zhensheng, Ronald, Pamela C., Li, Guotian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 29.06.2023; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 38/1; 38/23; 38/39; 45; 45/44; 45/70; 631/1647/1511; 631/449/2169; 631/449/2661/2666; 631/449/448/2024; 631/61/447/8; 96/35; 96/63; Acids; Agricultural production; Alleles; Cellular structure; Diacylglycerol Cholinephosphotransferase - genetics; Diacylglycerol Cholinephosphotransferase - metabolism; Diglycerides; Disease resistance; Disease Resistance - genetics; Editing; Environmental Sciences; Fungal infections; Gene deletion; Gene Editing - methods; Genes; Genome editing; Genome, Plant - genetics; Genomes; Genotype & phenotype; Humanities and Social Sciences; Life Sciences; Medical research; multidisciplinary; Mutation; Oryza - enzymology; Oryza - genetics; Oryza - microbiology; Oryza sativa; Pathogens; Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-diphosphate; Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-Diphosphate - metabolism; Phosphatidylinositols - metabolism; Phospholipids; Plant breeding; Plant Breeding - methods; Plant diseases; Plant Diseases - genetics; Plant Diseases - microbiology; Rice; Science; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Science (multidisciplinary); Yeast; Protein trafficking in plants; Genetic engineering; Biotic; Agricultural genetics; Plant immunity
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06205-2

The discovery and application of genome editing introduced a new era of plant breeding by giving researchers efficient tools for the precise engineering of crop genomes 1 . Here we demonstrate the power of genome editing for engineering broad-spectrum disease resistance in rice ( Oryza sativa ). We first isolated a lesion mimic mutant (LMM) from a mutagenized rice population. We then demonstrated that a 29-base-pair deletion in a gene we named RESISTANCE TO BLAST1 ( RBL1 ) caused broad-spectrum disease resistance and showed that this mutation caused an approximately 20-fold reduction in yield. RBL1 encodes a cytidine diphosphate diacylglycerol synthase that is required for phospholipid biosynthesis 2 . Mutation of RBL1 results in reduced levels of phosphatidylinositol and its derivative phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P 2 ). In rice, PtdIns(4,5)P 2 is enriched in cellular structures that are specifically associated with effector secretion and fungal infection, suggesting that it has a role as a disease-susceptibility factor 3 . By using targeted genome editing, we obtained an allele of RBL1 , named RBL1 Δ12 , which confers broad-spectrum disease resistance but does not decrease yield in a model rice variety, as assessed in small-scale field trials. Our study has demonstrated the benefits of editing an LMM gene, a strategy relevant to diverse LMM genes and crops. Editing of a rice gene that has a role in phospholipid synthesis has endowed rice plants with broad-spectrum resistance to disease, including protection from common bacterial and fungal pathogens, without decreasing the yield.