Magnaporthe grisea is an ascomycete that is the causal agent of rice blast disease. The disease is one of the most destructive diseases of rice for the significant loss of the crop. The major strategies for defense against the disease are drugs and resistant cultivars, However, the fungus has been known to be highly variable with respects to drug resistance and host cultivar specificity, and th...

Thirteen polyporphic microsatellite markers suitable for population genetic structure analysis and ABC transporter and signal transduction coding genes variation measurement were developed for rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea. Polymorphism was evaluated by using forty-six isolates collected from diverse geographical locations and rice varieties. Preliminary results indicated that each locu...

Rice blast is caused by the fungus Magnaporthe grisea, which elaborates specialized infection cells called appressoria to penetrate the tough outer cuticle of the rice plant Oryza sativa. We found that the formation of an appressorium required, sequentially, the completion of mitosis, nuclear migration, and death of the conidium (fungal spore) from which the infection originated. Genetic interv...

Glufosinate ammonium diminished developments of rice (Oryza sativa) blast and brown leaf spot in 35S:bar-transgenic rice. Pre- and postinoculation treatments of this herbicide reduced disease development. Glufosinate ammonium specifically impeded appressorium formation of the pathogens Magnaporthe grisea and Cochliobolus miyabeanus on hydrophobic surface and on transgenic rice. In contrast, con...

SUMMARY A fast-neutron mutagenized population of rice seedlings was screened with Magnaporthe grisea, the causal agent of rice blast disease, to identify mutants with alterations in the defence response. Three mutant lines, ebr1, ebr2 and ebr3 (enhanced blast resistance) were identified that display enhanced resistance to M. grisea. ebr1 and ebr3 also confer enhanced resistance to the bacterial...

Blast disease, caused by hemibiotrophic fungus Pyricularia oryzae Sacc. (teleomorph: Magnaporthe oryzae (Hebert) Barr.), previously known as Magnaporthe grisea, is the most serious disease of rice and causes high yield losses in most rice growing regions every year. Blast is an endemic disease in all Iranian and Uruguayan rice fields, with yield losses up to 90 % that has been reported from som...