The soil-borne necrotrophic fungus Rhizoctonia solani is one of destructive fungi causing severe yield losses in various important crops.  However, the host defense mechanisms against the invasion of this pathogen are poorly understood.  In this study, we employed an iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic approach to investigate host proteins responsive to R. solani using the resistant rice cultivar YSBR1.  As a whole, we identified 319 differentially accumulated proteins (DAPs) after inoculation of rice plants with R. solani.  Functional categorization analysis indicates that these DAPs cover a broad range of functions.  Notably, a substantial portion of the DAPs are involved in cell redox homeostasis, carbohydrate metabolism, and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, or belong to pathogenesis-related proteins, indicating that these processes/proteins play important roles in host defense against R. solani.  Interestingly, all of the DAPs involved in photosynthesis and chlorophyll biosynthetic processes, and part of the DAPs involved in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, show reduced accumulation after R. solani infection, suggesting that R. solani probably inhibits host photosynthetic system and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis to facilitate infection and colonization.  In conclusion, our results provide both valuable resources and new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying rice and R. solani interaction.

  The West Liaohe Plain is located in the eastern Inner Mongolia, known as the golden maize belt in China, where maize acreage has continued to rise in recent years. Water is the main limiting factor for maize production in the region, therefore, this study calculated the effect of maize sowing area changes on agricultural water consumption in the West Liaohe Plain in 2000, 2005 and 2010, based on remote sensing and meteorological data. Maize remote sensing classification was constructed based on moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer, normalized difference vegatation index (MODIS NDVI) data. Then the maize sown area and water requirement and irrigation water resources were investigated. Finally, the effect of the maize sowing area changes on agricultural water consumption in the West Liaohe Plain was systematically analyzed in 2000, 2005, and 2010. The results showed that maize sown areas rose from 2000 to 2010 and were concentrated in the center of the West Liaohe Plain. Average per unit maize water deficit amount also increased in an uneven distribution, increasing from the south, east and north to the center and west of the West Liaohe Plain. The per unit area maize water deficit increased from 2000 to 2010, and reached 266 mm in 2000, 272 mm in 2005 and 273 mm in 2010, respectively. And the study concluded that water deficit during the whole growth period of maize in the West Liaohe Plain was defined by a single peak curve. The maize water requirements increased with maize sowing area changes from 2000 to 2010, and the maize water requirements increased from 0.89 billion m³ in 2000 to 1.19 billion m³ in 2005, and 1.21 billion m³ in 2010.