The Innovation Team of Underutilized Crop Elite Germplasm Resources Exploration and Innovative Utilization from the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (ICS-CAAS) revealed the molecular mechanism of jasmonic acid (JA) mediated flavonoids involved in the regulation of Tartary buckwheat resistant to  Rhizoctonia solani . The relevant research results are published online in  The Plant Cell.

Buckwheat is an important underutilized crop originating from China, and it is rich in flavonoids, especially rutin.  Rhizoctonia solani is an important pathogen of buckwheat, and seriously threatens the yield of buckwheat. Previous studies have found that the flavonoids content significantly decreased during Tartary buckwheat domestication, and it is closely related to buckwheat resistant to  R. solani . However, the molecular mechanism remains unclear.

By combining the disease resistance of Tartary buckwheat core germplasm resources with the whole genome re-sequencing data, scientists identified 106 domestication loci related to both flavonoid metabolism and disease resistance. And many key genes involved in JA synthesis and signaling were found response to  R. solani infection. Overexpression of the key gene  FtCYP94C1 in JA signaling pathway can increase not only the flavonoids content, but also the resistance to  R. solani . Scientists also found that JA mediated serine hydroxymethyltransferase, which is involved in flavonoids metabolism, could interact with the virulence proteins of  R. solani , and this interaction might participate in fungi infect plant successfully. This study revealed the molecular mechanism of the interaction between  R. solani and the flavonoids, providing important genetic resources and theoretical basis for molecular breeding of buckwheat with high disease resistance.

This work was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, the Youth Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Key R&D Program of China and European Union Horizon 2020 project Planta SYST.

More details can be found at the link below: https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koad118

By Zhou Meiliang (zhoumeiliang@caas.cn)