Molecular Microbiology Research, 2025, Vol.15, No.2, 82-92 http://microbescipublisher.com/index.php/mmr 82 Review and Progress Open Access Genetic Management of Major Rice Diseases Haiying Huang1, Danyan Ding2 1 Hier Rice Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China 2 Institute of Life Science, Jiyang College of Zhejiang A&F University, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China Corresponding email: danyan.ding@jicat.org Molecular Microbiology Research, 2025, Vol.15, No.2 doi: 10.5376/mmr.2025.15.0009 Received: 15 Feb., 2025 Accepted: 25 Mar., 2025 Published: 25 Apr., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Huang and Ding, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Huang H.Y., and Ding D.Y., 2025, Genetic management of major rice diseases, Molecular Microbiology Research, 15(2): 82-92 (doi: 10.5376/mmr.2025.15.0009). Abstract Rice is one of the most important food crops in the world, and its yield and stability are deeply affected by fungal and bacterial diseases. In recent years, rice blast, bacterial leaf blight and bacterial leaf streak have frequently broken out in many places, seriously threatening the safety of rice production. In response to the above problems, this paper systematically reviews the latest research progress on the pathogenesis of major fungal and bacterial diseases of rice, the identification and regulatory network of resistance genes, and focuses on analyzing the functional characteristics and regulatory mechanisms of major effect genes (such as Pi9, Pigm, Xa21, xa13, etc.) and recessive resistance loci related to rice blast and bacterial leaf blight, and explores the role of salicylic acid and jasmonic acid signaling pathways, transcription factors and miRNA in immune response. At the same time, this paper also summarizes the application practice of new molecular breeding strategies such as molecular marker-assisted selection (MAS) and CRISPR/Cas gene editing in the selection of disease-resistant varieties, and summarizes the practical results of current resistance improvement by combining the breeding path and field performance of typical blast-resistant varieties. On this basis, it is proposed that we should strengthen the construction of joint resistance of fungi and bacteria in the future, and reconstruct the multi-environment resistance evaluation system under the background of climate change. This paper aims to provide systematic reference and theoretical support for the continuous optimization and efficient promotion of rice disease resistance breeding. Keywords Rice; Disease resistance breeding; Rice blast; Bacterial blight; CRISPR/Cas gene editing 1 Introduction Rice is the staple food crop for more than half of the world's population and plays an irreplaceable role in ensuring world food security. However, throughout the growth cycle of rice, it is always facing serious threats from various fungal and bacterial diseases, especially rice blast (caused by Magnaporthe oryzae) and bacterial leaf blight (caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae). These two diseases are widely prevalent in major rice-producing areas such as Asia, Africa and Latin America, causing 10% to 30% yield losses throughout the year, and may even lead to more than 50% yield reduction in extreme epidemic years (Younas et al., 2024; Khadka et al., 2025). In addition, diseases such as sheath blight, false smut and bacterial leaf streak are also showing an increasing trend year by year, posing new challenges to stable rice yields. Among the many prevention and control methods, breeding and promoting disease-resistant varieties is considered to be one of the most economical, green and sustainable strategies. Compared with chemical control by pesticides, disease-resistant varieties can effectively reduce pesticide dependence, reduce environmental pollution, and improve the overall stability of rice farming systems (Yang et al., 2022; Ofori et al., 2023). Especially in the context of the current "dual carbon" goals and green agriculture, the importance of breeding methods has become increasingly prominent. However, disease-resistant breeding is not an easy task. On the one hand, rice pathogens have extremely strong genetic diversity and rapid mutation capabilities. New subspecies often appear quickly after the large-scale promotion of resistant varieties to break through their resistance, resulting in a situation of "resistance for a short time, breaking quickly". On the other hand, the resistance trait itself may have problems such as genetic background dependence, yield penalty effect or poor agronomic traits, which further restricts its application in breeding (Chen et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2024).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==