Transcriptomic Profiling of Resistant and Susceptible Rice Cultivar Blast Resistance Genes During Magnaporthe oryzae Infection

Rice is an important staple food crop and a primary energy source for more than half of the world’s population. One of the deadly fungal diseases of rice produced by Magnaporthe oryzae is known as “blast disease.” It has consistently threatened the world’s food supply. This study aimed to dissect the complex blast resistance mechanism of the rice plant against blast pathogens. To understand the molecular mechanisms of blast resistance, we analyzed transcriptome changes in rice cultivars. Using transcriptome data obtained from an RNA-seq analysis of two samples comprising resistant (BR2655) and susceptible (HR12) genotypes under control and stress conditions was carried out. The total RNA sequencing generated a dataset of four samples, representing more than 40 Gb fastq raw data. A total of 145 million filtered reads were generated after the quality check. High-quality clean reads mapped rice reference genome RGAP 7. These aligned reads were taken for further analysis. A total of 11,867 DEGs across the genotypes under stress were identified. A total of 7577 and 4290 genes showed significant differential expression in BRC vs. BRIN library and HRC vs. HRIN library, respectively. The results reveal that differential gene expression analysis clearly shows the changes in the expression profiling of BR2655 and HR12 cultivars.