Disease resistance assays
Two-week-old Hui1586 and Nipponbare plants were used for inoculation with Guy11 as previously described (Y. B. Li et al., 2020) with minor modifications. The spore concentration was adjusted to 5 × 105 spores/mL with 0.02% Tween-20, and H2O with 0.02% Tween-20 was used as the mock treatment. The fungal-inoculated rice seedlings were kept in a dark chamber at 25C with 85% humidity for 24 hours, and then the plants were maintained in the growth chamber at 26/24C under a 14-h light/10-h dark cycle with 85% humidity. Flag leaves were harvested at 12, 24, 36, and 48 hpi, and three biological replicates are collected for each treatment. On the seventh day, the plants were scored using the 0-9 scale of the standard evaluation system for rice (International Rice Research Institute 1996). The plants with a rating of 0-3 were considered resistant, and those with a rating of 4-9 were considered susceptible.