Priming of rice defense against a sap-sucking insect pest brown planthopper by silicon

Silicon (Si) enhances rice resistance to various insect herbivores. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Whereas the salicylic acid (SA) signaling pathway plays a vital role in plant defense responses to sucking insects, its role in Si-enhanced rice resistance has not been investigated. Si transporter mutant OsLsi1 and mutants with antisense expression of ICS (as-ics) and NPR1 (as-npr1) in the SA pathway and their corresponding wild types (WT) were treated with and without Si to determine Si effects on rice resistance to brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål), as well as on SA accumulation, defense-related enzyme activity and gene expression. Si application significantly affected host preference of BPH, significantly reduced honeydew secretion and inhibited oviposition and hatch rate. Upon BPH infestation, SA content, transcript levels of BPH3, ICS1 and PAL4, and activities of POD, SOD, PPO and PAL were significantly higher in Si-treated than untreated plants. The defense responses were also faster. However, OsLsi1 mutant plants displayed higher susceptibility to BPH and minimal defense responses. Furthermore, simultaneous application of SA and Si in WT plants showed the highest resistance to BPH, but had no obvious effect on OsLsi1, antisense as-ics and as-npr1 plants. Our results suggest that Si enhances rice defense against the sucking insect BPH by defense priming and the Si-mediated priming involves SA signaling pathway.