Not AvailableSheath blight of rice is a destructive disease that could be calamitous to rice cultivation. The
significant objective of this study is to contemplate the proteomic analysis of the high virulent and
less virulent isolate of Rhizoctonia solani using a quantitative LC-MS/MS-based proteomic approach to
identify the differentially expressed proteins promoting higher virulence. Across several rice-growing
regions in Odisha, Eastern India, 58 Rhizoctonia isolates were obtained. All the isolates varied in their
pathogenicity. The isolate RS15 was found to be the most virulent and RS22 was identified as the
least virulent. The PCR amplification confirmed that the RS15 and RS22 belonged to the Rhizoctonia
subgroup of AG1-IA with a specific primer. The proteomic information generated has been deposited
in the PRIDE database with PXD023430. The virulent isolate consisted of 48 differentially abundant
proteins, out of which 27 proteins had higher abundance, while 21 proteins had lower abundance.
The analyzed proteins acquired functionality in fungal development, sporulation, morphology,
pathogenicity, detoxification, antifungal activity, essential metabolism and transcriptional activities,
protein biosynthesis, glycolysis, phosphorylation and catalytic activities in fungi. A Quantitative
Real-Time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to validate changes in differentially expressed proteins at the
mRNA level for selected genes. The abundances of proteins and transcripts were positively correlated.
This study provides the role of the proteome in the pathogenicity of R. solani AG1-IA in rice and
underpins the mechanism behind the pathogen’s virulence in causing sheath blight disease.Not Availabl
