Rice Genomics and Genetics 2024, Vol.15, No.2, 69-79 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/rgg 73 researchers successfully discovered a new rice blast resistance gene Pijx. This gene was quickly identified through whole-genome sequencing, providing an important candidate gene for rice disease resistance breeding (Xiao et al., 2023). Association analysis is another important method in genomics technology. It helps scientists find potential resistance genes by analyzing the correlation between genes and phenotypes. The advantage of association analysis is that multiple genes can be studied simultaneously in large-scale samples and the complex relationship between genes and phenotypes can be revealed. In rice disease resistance research, association analysis is widely used to find genetic variants associated with rice blast resistance. Correlation analysis also has a wide range of advantages in practical applications. First, it can discover situations where multiple genes are simultaneously associated with disease resistance traits, which helps to fully understand the complexity of resistance mechanisms. Secondly, association analysis can also identify alleles that are beneficial to resistance, providing precise genetic information for subsequent molecular breeding. Through this method, scientists have achieved remarkable results in the discovery and utilization of rice blast resistance genes. In addition, association analysis technology can also help identify genomic regions associated with resistance, which provides a breakthrough for more in-depth molecular research. 3.2 Gene expression and functional studies The study of gene expression and function is a key area for in-depth understanding of the genetic mechanism of organisms and the search for potential disease resistance genes. Differential expression analysis is an important method to study gene expression levels under different conditions. By comparing normal and pathogen-infected tissues, scientists were able to identify differentially expressed genes, providing important clues to the identification of disease-resistant genes. The principle of differential expression analysis is to conduct extensive detection of the entire genome of an organism through high-throughput sequencing technology, such as RNA sequencing. This method not only measures the expression level of each gene, but also compares gene expression changes under different conditions. For example, after rice is infected by blast disease, a large amount of gene expression data can be obtained by sequencing RNA from infected and uninfected tissues. Then, through statistical analysis, genes that were significantly up-regulated or down-regulated in infected tissues were found, and these genes may be involved in the resistance response of rice to rice blast. Pib, the first rice blast resistance gene, encodes a nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) protein that mediates resistance to the avirulent gene AvrPib in Magnaporthe oryzae. By comparing the gene expression profiles of resistant varieties and infected varieties, the scientists found that the expression level of the Pib gene was significantly up-regulated in the resistant varieties. Further functional studies showed that Pib participates in the immune response of rice and enhances rice resistance to rice blast by regulating the expression of a series of immune-related genes. This example highlights the importance of differential expression analysis in the identification of disease resistance genes and provides a basis for in-depth understanding of disease resistance mechanisms (Peng et al., 2021). Functional genomics is a discipline that studies the function of genes in cells or entire organisms. Functional genomics plays a key role in the identification of disease resistance genes. By understanding the function of genes, scientists can delve deeper into the specific role of genes in disease resistance, thereby providing more targeted strategies for breeding and gene editing. A typical application is to reveal the molecular mechanism of rice blast resistance genes through functional genomics. Taking the previously mentioned Pib gene as an example, through functional genomics, scientists found that Pib participates in the immune signaling pathway of rice and regulates multiple genes related to rice blast resistance. This meticulous functional analysis enables scientists to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the role of Pib genes in rice disease resistance and provides specific targets for future rice breeding efforts.
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