This laboratory conducts research on how plants protect themselves from various environmental stressors such as pest infections. When plants recognize pathogens, they activate a defense response through signal transduction via various plant hormones and activation of downstream target genes by transcription factors. To clarify these induction mechanisms, we mainly use rice as research material and investigate the functions of plant hormones and transcription factors involved in environmental stress responses. Additionally, we study the synthesis and functions of secondary metabolites that plants accumulate in response to environmental stress.

Understanding the functions of plant hormones involved in the disease resistance response of rice plants.

Different plant hormones play a role in inducing plant disease resistance responses. Previously, it has been known that hormones such as jasmonic acid and salicylic acid are important signaling molecules that induce resistance. However, the involvement of cytokinin in disease resistance was not clear. By using genome editing to create rice plants that lack both cytokinin and jasmonic acid, we found that these rice plants were significantly more susceptible to powdery mildew disease. This suggests that both jasmonic acid and cytokinin play a crucial role in the rice's resistance to powdery mildew.

Functional analysis of jasmonic acid receptors in rice

Jasmonic acid, a plant hormone, is known to be involved not only in the growth and development of plants, such as the inhibition of elongation, aging, and formation of male reproductive organs, but also in the stress response of plants. Plant hormones exert various physiological functions by binding to proteins called receptors. Rice has three genes that code for jasmonic acid receptors, but their functions have not been clarified. Currently, to clarify the function of rice jasmonic acid receptors, mutant strains of each receptor are produced and their expression patterns are analyzed.

Regulatory mechanism of production of antimicrobial secondary metabolites in rice

Plants are known to produce various antimicrobial secondary metabolites to protect themselves from infection by pathogenic bacteria. These antimicrobial substances produced by plants are collectively referred to as phytoalexins. Rice produces various phytoalexins, such as momilactone, phytic acid, and sacranine. To date, research has been conducted to uncover the transcriptional regulation mechanism of phytoalexin synthesis genes in order to clarify how rice responds to infection by pathogens and induces the production of phytoalexins. So far, it has been revealed that various transcription factors induce or suppress the transcription of phytoalexin synthesis genes, controlling the production of phytoalexins.

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Introduction of Koji Miyamoto