Investigation of the expression pattern of defense-related genes in rice plants treated with biological silver nanoparticles and Magnaporthe oryzae, the fungus causing blast disease

Blast is one of the most important and destructive rice diseases in the world. Nanoparticles are antimicrobial agents used as biological and non–biological stimulants and can induce resistance in plant against pathogens. Effects of different biological and non–biological nanoparticles on inhibition of various plant fungal pathogens has been proved. However, no study has been done about the effect of biological nanoparticles on control of this disease through induction of resistance and expression of defense genes. In this study, in addition to direct effect of biological silver nanoparticles synthesized using Trichoderma harzianum fungus in vitro, its indirect effect was investigated by inducing systemic resistance in susceptible local Tarom cultivar on pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae under greenhouse conditions. For this purpose, expression of several important defense genes investigated in biological silver nanoparticle–treated plants in comparison with control plant (without biological silver nanoparticle) using real–time qPCR technique at different times after pathogen inoculation. The results showed a positive effect of different concentrations of biological nanoparticles in reduction of pathogen growth in comparison with the control treatment so that the amount of inhibition of pathogen growth in different concentrations (36, 27, 18, 9, 4.5 ppm) was 92, 81, 56, 28 and 7 percent compared to the control treatment, respectively. Phenotypic study of rice plant interaction with the fungus causing blast disease in presence of biological nanoparticle showed that there was no significant difference between the disease severities in biological nanoparticle–treated plants compared to control plants. Also, accumulation of transcripts of NPR1, PR2, PR3 and LOX genes between two mentioned treatments did not show significant increase. Therefore, indirect effect of biological silver nanoparticle on pathogenic fungus by induced resistance and increasing the rice plant defense genes is not considerable.