Use of RNA interference to dissect defense-signaling pathways in rice.

The RNA interference (RNAi) technique is a powerful tool to suppress gene expression and has been widely used for functional discovery of eukaryotic genes. To dissect defense-signaling pathways in rice, it is important to generate a series of rice mutant lines deficient in or insensitive to major signal molecules such as jasmonic acid and ethylene. Here we describe an RNAi protocol for generating and characterizing transgenic gene-silencing lines defective in rice jasmonic acid signaling. The RNAi technique should be useful for effective suppression of host genes encoding signaling components and facilitating the dissection of defense signal pathways in rice.