OsWRKY24, a blast-disease responsive transcription factor, positively regulates rice disease resistance

WRKYs are plant-specific transcription factors that play important roles in disease response. Here, we showed that a WRKY gene in rice, OsWRKY24 , was upregulated in response to inoculation with rice blast fungus Pyricularia oryzae . Its expression was also induced by wounding. Green fluorescent protein-fused OsWRKY24 localized to nuclei in rice epidermal cells, and OsWRKY24 had transactivation activity in yeast cells. In addition, functional repression of OsWRKY24 through a chimeric repressor (OsWRKY24-SRDX) greatly increased susceptibility to P. oryzae . These results indicate that OsWRKY24 is a transcriptional activator that positively regulates disease resistance in rice.