• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.46-51
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• 2022

Rice blast is the most destructive disease threatening stable rice production in rice-growing areas. Cultivation of disease-resistant rice cultivars is the most effective way to control rice blast disease. However, the rice blast resistance is easy to breakdown within years by blast fungus that continually changes to adapt to new cultivars. Therefore, it is important to continuously monitor the incidence of rice blast disease and race differentiation of rice blast fungus in fields. In 2020, a severe rice blast disease occurred nationwide in Korea. We evaluated the incidence of rice blast disease in Yeoju and compared the weather conditions at the periods of rice blast disease in 2019 and 2020. We investigated the races and avirulence genes of rice blast isolates in Yeoju to identify race diversity and genetic characteristics of the isolates. This study will provide empirical support for rice blast control and the breeding of blast-resistant rice cultivars.

• Korean journal of applied entomology
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• v.19 no.1 s.42
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• pp.11-20
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• 1980

Percent penetration on a specific rice variety was more affected by blast fungus isolate or predisposition temperature than by temperature and isolate combinations. A susceptible variety tested remained continuously susceptible regardless of whether the variety was grown at different temperature regimes and exposed to isolates/races with differences in pathogenicity and virulence. The expression of virulence by a particular blast fungus isolate race was observed to be changed by subjecting rice host plants to different predisposing temperature conditions prior to inoculation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.64.2-64
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• 2003

Twenty-seven monogenic rice lines harboring major resistant gene for blast were screened to analyze their resistance spectrum to Korean blast fungus population using 190 isolates collected from 1985 to 2002. Especially, the monogenic line containing Pi-9 gene was screened using 320 isolates. Based on the monogenic lines-blast isolate interactions, the 27 rice lines were classified into 9 groups. The chinese rice cultivar LTH showed susceptible to all the tested isolates. Those lines IRBLz-Fu, ERBL5-M and IRBL9-W harboring Pi-z, Pi-5, and Pi-9, respectively showed broader spectrum of resistance than those rice lines having Pi-19, Pi-7 etc. Interestingly, the Pi-9 gene(IRBL9-W) showed resistance to most isolates collected before 2000, but it showed susceptible reactions to 5％ and 20％ of blast fungus population in 2001 and 2002, respectively. Population of virulent isolates to Pi-ta, Pi-b, and Pi-7 also were increased in 2002 compared to those before 2000.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Plant Pathology Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.48-52
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• 2004

We have found the role of rice mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAPKKK), OsEDR1, as controling hypersensitive response (HR) and increased disease resistance to rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea. Generation of transgenic rice plants through introduction of the over-expression construct of OsEDR1 using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation results in lesion mimic phenotype. Up-regulation of defense mechanism was detected through detection of increased transcription level of rice PBZ1 and PR1a. Inoculation of rice blast fungus on the lesion mimic transgenic lines displayed significantly increased resistance. The disease symptoms were arrested like HR responses which are commonly detected in the incompatible interactions. High accumulation of phenolic compounds around developing lesions was detected under UV light. There was variation among transgenic lines on the timing of lesion progression as well as the lesion numbers on the rice leaves. Transgenic lines with few lesions also show increased resistance as well as equal amount of grain yields compared to that of wild type rice cultivar Nipponbare. This is the first report of the MAPKKK as a positive regulator molecule on defense mechanism through inducing HR-like cell death lesion mimic phenotype. The application of OsEDR1 is highly expected for the development of resistant cultivars against rice pathogens.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2002

Direct effects of atmospheric ozone on conidia of the rice blast pathogen, Magnaporthe grisea, were investigated to evaluate ozone-induced effects on infection potential of the rice blast fungus. Acute ozone exposure (200 nl $1^{-1}$, 8 h $day^{-1}$3 days) during sporulation significantly affected conidial morphology, appressorium formation, and disease development on rice loaves. Ozone caused reduction in conidial size and change in conidial shape. Relative cytoplasmic volume of lipids and vacuoles were increased in ozone-exposed conidia. Inhibition of appressorium formation and simultaneous increase in endogenous levee of polyamines were found in ozone-exposed conidia. The inverse relationship between appressorium formation and level of polyamines implies that ozone-mediated increase in intracellular level of polyamines may inhibit appressorium formation in rice blast fungus. Furthermore, rice plants inoculated with ozone-fumigated conidia exhibited less severe disease development than those with unfumigated conidia. This result suggests that the anti-conidial consequence of acute ozone will eventually weaken the rice blasts potential for multiple infection cycle. This further suggests that consequently, rice blast can be transformed from an explosive disease to one that has limited epidemiological potential in the field.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Fisheries Technology Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.175-176
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• 2002

Rice blast, caused by Pyricularia oryzae (P. oryzae), is generally considered to be the most serious fungal disease of rice by its widespread distribution and destructiveness (Manandhar et al., 1998). The pathogenic fungus directly penetrates into the rice plant from a cellular structure called an appressorium that is formed at the tip of the germ tube. And the fungus can attack any aerial part of the rice plant, including seeds, in which the fungus may overwinter for several years. (omitted)

• Mycobiology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.361-369
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• 2018

The rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, is an important pathogen of rice plants. It is well known that genes encoded in the genome have different evolutionary histories that are related to their functions. Phylostratigraphy is a method that correlates the evolutionary origin of genes with evolutionary transitions. Here we applied phylostratigraphy to partition total gene content of M. oryzae into distinct classes (phylostrata), which we designated PS1 to PS7, based on estimation of their emergence time. Genes in individual phylostrata did not show significant biases in their global distribution among seven chromosomes, but at the local level, clustering of genes belonging to the same phylostratum was observed. Our phylostrata-wide analysis of genes revealed that genes in the same phylostratum tend to be similar in many physical and functional characteristics such as gene length and structure, GC contents, codon adaptation index, and level of transcription, which correlates with biological functions in evolutionary context. We also found that a significant proportion of genes in the genome are orphans, for which no orthologs can be detected in the database. Among them, we narrowed down to seven orphan genes having transcriptional and translational evidences, and showed that one of them is implicated in asexual reproduction and virulence, suggesting ongoing evolution in this fungus through lineage-specific genes. Our results provide genomic basis for linking functions of pathogenicity factors and gene emergence time.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.34-42
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• 2003

The ascomycete Magnaporthe grisea is a pathogen of rice blast and is known to form specialized infection structures called appressoria for successful infection into host cells. To understand the molecular mechanism underlying infection process, appressorium-related genes were identified through global approaches including EST sequencing, differential hybridization, and sup-pression subtractive hybridization. EST database was generated on >2,000 cDNA clones randomly selected from appressorium stage cDNA library. Large number of ESTs showed homology to known proteins possibly involved in infection-related cellular development (attachment, germination, appressorium formation, and colonization) of rice blast fungus. The 1051 ESTs showing significant homology to known genes were assigned to 11 functional categories. Differential hybridization and suppression subtractive hybridization were applied to identify genes showing an appressorium stage specific expression pattern. A number of genes were selected as up-regulated during appressorium formation compared with the vegetative growing stage. Clones from various cDNA libraries constructed in different developmental stages were arrayed on slide glass for further expression profiling study. functional characterization of genes identified from these global approaches may lead to a better understand-ing of the infection process of this devastating plant disease, and the development of novel ways to protect host plant.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.384-391
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• 2008

Rice blast disease, caused by the pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe grisea, is a serious issue in rice (Oryza sativa L.) growing regions of the world. Transcript profiling in rice inoculated with the fungus has been investigated using the transcriptomics technology, serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE). Short sequence tags containing sufficient information which are ten base-pairs representing the unique transcripts were identified by SAGE technology. We identified a total of 910 tag sequences via the GenBank database, and the resulting genes were shown to be up-regulated in all functional categories under the fungal biotic stress. Compared to the compatible interaction, the stress and defense genes in the incompatible interaction appear to be more up-regulated. Particularly, thaumatin-like gene (TLP) was investigated in determining the gene and protein expression level utilizing Northern and Western blotting analyses, resulting in an increase in both the gene and the protein expression level which arose earlier in the incompatible interaction than in the compatible interaction.

• Korean Journal Plant Pathology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.496-501
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• 1998

Incidence of rice blast on new rice cultivars and elite lines was observed from 1995 to 1997 in Icheon, Chuncheon, Jecheon and Naju areas. The observation was made in the nurseries and fields. In the nurseries, three cultivars Grubyeo, Sangjuchalbyeo and Suwon 414 showed moderate levels of resistance to leaf blast, with the disease index 0 to 5. From the field observation, it was found that cultivars Heugjinjubyeo and Unbong 18 were highly resistant to leaf blast, but susceptible to neck blast. In general, there was a great variation yearly and regionally in the incidence of neck blast within the same cultivar, ranging from 0 to 100%. However, the range of neck blast infection was relatively narrower in the cultivars Yunghaebyeo (0∼2.4%) and Suwon 414 (0∼2.2%) during observation period. Races of rice blast fungus were variable at different areas. Among them dominant races were KI-409, KJ-201 and KJ-301.