Spotted-leaf mutants are important to reveal programmed cell death and defense-related pathways in rice. We previously characterized the phenotype performance of a rice spotted-leaf mutant spl21 and narrowed down the causal gene locus spl21(t) to an 87-kb region in chromosome 12 by map-based cloning. | Functional inactivation of OsGCNT induces enhanced disease resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae in rice