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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Agrobacterium-Mediated Immature Embryo Transformation of Recalcitrant Maize Inbred Lines Using Morphogenic Genes
Published on: February 14, 2020
A helitron-induced RabGDIα variant causes quantitative recessive resistance to maize rough dwarf disease
Qingcai Liu1, Suining Deng1, Baoshen Liu2
1State Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry/College of Agronomy and Biotechnology/National Maize Improvement Center/Center for Crop Functional Genomics and Molecular Breeding, China Agricultural University, 2 West Yuanmingyuan Road, Beijing, 100193, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Maize rough dwarf disease (MRDD), caused by various species of the genus Fijivirus, threatens maize production worldwide. We previously identified a quantitative locus qMrdd1 conferring recessive resistance to one causal species, rice black-streaked dwarf virus (RBSDV). Here, we show that Rab GDP dissociation inhibitor alpha (RabGDIα) is the host susceptibility factor for RBSDV. The viral P7-1 protein binds tightly to the exon-10 and C-terminal regions of RabGDIα to recruit it for viral infection. Insertion of a helitron transposon into RabGDIα intron 10 creates alternative splicing to replace the wild-type exon 10 with a helitron-derived exon 10. The resultant splicing variant RabGDIα-hel has difficulty being recruited by P7-1, thus leading to quantitative recessive resistance to MRDD. All naturally occurring resistance alleles may have arisen from a recent single helitron insertion event. These resistance alleles are valuable to improve maize resistance to MRDD and potentially to engineer RBSDV resistance in other crops.
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