Identification of Differentially Expressed Genes Reveal Conserved Mechanisms in the Rice- Interaction.

causes rice blast disease and is responsible for major losses in rice production worldwide. Although numerous studies have focused on the interactions between and , to date, the conserved mechanisms remain in part unclear. In this study, a comparative analysis of transcriptomes of L. ssp. cv. 'Nipponbare' interacting with three strains (248, 235, and 163) were performed to explore the conserved molecular mechanisms. Differentially expressed genes with similar expression patterns in the interactions between cultivar 'Nipponbare' and three strains were defined as Conserved Differentially Expressed Genes (CDEGs). These included 3,647 CDEGs and 3,655 CDEGs. Four rice CDEGs (, , , and ) encoding universal stress protein (USP) were induced within 24 h post-inoculation (hpi) by three strains. Meanwhile, overexpression of resulted in enhanced rice resistance against . Furthermore, four rice genes coding light-harvesting chlorophyll a/b-binding (LHC) protein (, , , ) were also identified as CDEGs and were induced at 48 hpi, which might contribute to blast resistance through reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation. is effector inducing rice cell death and were verified that include AA9 CAZy domain (namely GH61 domain). In this study, we found seven homologous genes coding proteins with signal peptides and AA9 CAZy domains, which were continuously up-regulated across all infection stages relative to uninoculated control. This study uncovered that genes are required for conserved mechanisms of rice- interaction, which includes rice genes encoding USP proteins and LHC proteins, as well as genes encoding AA9 proteins. This study will help us to understand how responds to infections and the molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity.