Although germin‐like proteins (GLPs) have been demonstrated to participate in plant biotic stress responses, their specific functions in rice disease resistance are still largely unknown. Here, we report the identification and characterization of OsGLP3‐7 , a member of the GLP family in rice. Expression of OsGLP3‐7 was significantly induced by pathogen infection, jasmonic acid (JA) treatment, and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) treatment. OsGLP3‐7 was highly expressed in leaves and sublocalized in the cytoplasm. Overexpression of OsGLP3‐7 increased plant resistance to leaf blast, panicle blast, and bacterial blight, whereas disease resistance in OsGLP3‐7 RNAi silenced plants was remarkably compromised, suggesting this gene is a positive regulator of disease resistance in rice. Further analysis showed that OsGLP3‐7 has superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and can influence the accumulation of H 2 O 2 in transgenic plants. Many genes involved in JA and phytoalexin biosynthesis were strongly induced, accompanied with elevated levels of JA and phytoalexins in OsGLP3‐7 ‐overexpressing plants, while expression of these genes was significantly suppressed and the levels of JA and phytoalexins were reduced in OsGLP3‐7 RNAi plants compared with control plants, both before and after pathogen inoculation. Moreover, we showed that OsGLP3‐7 ‐dependent phytoalexin accumulation may, at least partially, be attributed to the elevated JA levels observed after pathogen infection. Taken together, our results indicate that OsGLP3‐7 positively regulates rice disease resistance by activating JA and phytoalexin metabolic pathways, thus providing novel insights into the disease resistance mechanisms conferred by GLPs in rice.

The grain protein content (GPC) of rice is an important factor that determines its nutritional, cooking, and eating qualities. To date, some genes affecting GPC have been identi ed in rice, most of which have been cloned using mutants. A few genes controlling rice GPC have been cloned in the natural population. Here, 135 signi cant association loci were detected in a genome-wide associated study (GWAS), and many loci could be repeatedly detected across different years and populations. Four minor quantitative trait loci affecting rice GPC at four signi cant association loci, qPC1.1, qPC1.2, qPC1.3, and qPC1.4, were further validated in near-isogenic line F 2 populations (NIL-F 2 ), and explained 9.82, 43.4, 29.2, and 13.6% of the phenotypic variation, respectively. The associated o5 knockdown mutation simultaneously increased the grain chalkiness rate and GPC. Three candidate genes in a signi cant association locus region were analyzed using haplotype and expression pro les. The ndings of this study will contribute to the cloning of rice GPC genes to elucidate the genetic regulatory network of protein synthesis and accumulation in rice, and provide new dominant alleles for marker-assisted selection in the genetic improvement of rice grain quality.