Blast is the most common destructive disease affecting rice production globally. Resistance by the host organism has emerged to be the most practical and cost-efficient method for controlling rice blasts. Recent research has demonstrated that sequence-specific nucleases, which clustered regularly, interspaced short palindrome repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology is thought to be the most successful and potent tool for enhancing crops through gene-specific genome editing. However, there have not been many reports of their use in improving superior rice varieties. In this research study, we describe the Cas9-OsHDT-sgRNA-expressing gene cassette development that targets the OsHDT701 gene in rice and increases rice’s blast resistance. The target location of these plants had a deletion (Del) alteration, according to the Sanger sequencing method. We proved that mutant lines with the intended gene alteration but no transplanted DNA showed OsHDT701 gene-induced allele mutation. The recombinant clone was confirmed with M13 primers. Phenotypic and agronomic traits such as the height of the plant, size, shape, length of the leaf, panicle length, and leaf response were examined in the mutated homozygous plants for blast resistance. In comparison with the wild-type plants, all mutant lines had significantly fewer blast lesions caused due to pathogen infection. In addition, none of the mutated and the wild plants significantly differed from one another in terms of the agronomic traits when examined visually. Our findings suggest that the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system is a practical method for enhancing rice blast resistance.
Key words: Blast, OsHDT701, Recombinant clone, Mutant lines, Wild-type plants
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