Allelic diversity in an NLR gene BPH9 enables rice to combat planthopper variation

Significance Insect pests represent a major constraint that reduces crop yield and quality globally. Host plant resistance is often used as a key tactic to control insect pests, but is frequently overcome by newly emerged insect populations. In nature, plants have developed various strategies for sustainable defense. In this work, we isolated a brown planthopper-resistance gene, BPH9 , and show that alleles of this gene locus have been widely used in rice breeding and saved rice production from massive brown planthopper (BPH) damage. Allelic diversity in this gene locus has provided resistance to rice against different BPH populations. Manipulating allelic diversity of the gene may provide a strategy for developing resistant varieties to cope with evolving insect populations with new virulence variation.