Transfer of bacterial blight resistance from Oryza meyeriana to O. sativa L. by asymmetric somatic hybridization

Asymmetric somatic hybrid plants were produced between cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) and wild species [O. meyeriana (Zoll. etMor. exSteud.)] with high resistance to rice bacterial blight. X-ray-irradiated protoplasts of the wild species were used as donor and chemically fused with iodoacetamide-inactivated protoplasts of rice cv. 02428 to produce hybrids. Seventy-two plants were regenerated from 623 calli based on metabolic complementation. The morphological characters of the plants closely resembled that of the rice. Simple sequence repeats were employed to identify their hybridity. Cytological analysis of root-tips revealed that their chromosome number varied in the range of 27–38. The somatic hybrids were inoculated with strains of Xanthamonas oryzae pv. oryzae at adult growth stage and demonstrated the resistance to bacterial blight introgression from the O. meyeriana.