Food security remains a pressing global challenge, particularly for staple crops like rice. The traditional Yunnan landrace rice variety Mowanggu (MWG) exhibits broad-spectrum and durable resistance to Magnaporthe oryzae, the causal agent of destructive rice blast disease, making it a valuable germplasm resource for breeding. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying this resistance remain unclear due to the lack of a high-quality genome. Here, we present a chromosome-scale draft genome assembly of MWG, combining Nanopore long-read and Illumina short-read sequencing. Through comparative genomic analyses, we identified structural variations, gene family expansions and divergence events. We identified nine RLK genes within the Pi49 resistance locus, among which overexpression of OSAmwg₀38136 enhanced the expression of pathogenesis-related genes and increased resistance to rice blast. OSAmwg₀38136 was shown to interact with OsDIP1, a member of the R3H protein family, which positively regulates blast resistance. Our findings provide critical insights into the molecular basis of MWG durable blast resistance and offer a foundation for engineering broad-spectrum disease resistance in rice.
Peng et al. (Sun,) studied this question.