Recent advances in research on spotted-leaf mutants of rice (Oryza sativa).

Many rice spotted-leaf mutants are ideal sources for understanding the mechanisms involved in blast resistance,bacterial blight resistance and programmed cell death in plants.The genetic controls of 49 spotted-leaf mutants in rice have been characterized and a few couple of spl/Spl genes have been isolated as well.This article reviews on the origin,genetic modes,isolation and characterization of spotted-leaf genes responsible for their phenotypes,and their resistance responses to main rice diseases.