Nucleotide variation and identification of novel blast resistance alleles of Pib by allele mining strategy

Pib is one of significant rice blast resistant genes, which provides resistance to wide range of isolates of rice blast pathogen, Magnaporthe oryzae. Identification and isolation of novel and beneficial alleles help in crop enhancement. Allele mining is one of the best strategies for dissecting the allelic variations at candidate gene and identification of novel alleles. Hence, in the present study, Pib was analyzed by allele mining strategy, and coding and non-coding (upstream and intron) regions were examined to identify novel Pib alleles. Allelic sequences comparison revealed that nucleotide polymorphisms at coding regions affected the amino acid sequences, while the polymorphism at upstream (non-coding) region affected the motifs arrangements. Pib alleles from resistant landraces, Sercher and Krengosa showed better resistance than Pib donor variety, might be due to acquired mutations, especially at LRR region. The evolutionary distance, Ka/Ks and phylogenetic analyzes also supported these results. Transcription factor binding motif analysis revealed that Pib Sr had a unique motif (DPBFCOREDCDC3), while five different motifs differentiated the resistance and susceptible Pib alleles. As the Pib is an inducible gene, the identified differential motifs helps to understand the Pib expression mechanism. The identified novel Pib resistant alleles, which showed high resistance to the rice blast, can be used directly in blast resistance breeding program as alternative Pib resistant sources.