Microarrays as a tool to identify untagged deletions in rice.

The rice lesion mimic mutant spl1, which spontaneously exhibits necrotic lesions, shows enhanced resistance to important rice pathogens, including Magnaporthe grisea (rice blast) and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (bacterial blight). Many lesion mimic mutants, which have been discovered in plant species including Arabidopsis, Zea mays, Hordeum vulgare and Triticum sp., show enhanced resistance to pathogen invasion. To study the molecular basis for the broad spectrum resistance exhibited by the rice spl1 mutant, we examined changes in gene expression and initiated work to identify the gene causing the phenotype.