Agro-Biotech News

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences reported the successful use of a prime editing system to confer a broad-spectrum resistance to bacterial blight in rice. The findings are published in an open-access report in New Plant Protection. Rice bacterial blight is a devastating disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), which can hack the rice plant's DNA to make it susceptible. While some rice strains contain a defense gene called Xa23, the particular rice variety used in the study had a non-functional Xa23 because of some errors.