## 5 Conclusions  
In this study, we report that the _OsVTC1-1_ gene is involved in the interaction between rice and rice blast fungus. Disease reaction, cell wall monosaccharide composition, photosynthetic efficiency, AsA content, O2\({}^{-}\) accumulation, and MDA content were analyzed in WT and _OsVTC1-1_ RNAi lines after rice blast inoculation. An enhanced rice blast resistance was observed in the _OsVTC1-1_ RNAi lines. A significant difference between _OsVTC1-1_ RNAi lines and WT was observed in the composition of monosaccharides on cell walls, photosynthetic efficiency, O2\({}^{-}\) accumulation, and levels of MDA. Transcriptome and proteomeanalysis revealed that rice blast inoculation induced defense-related genes and proteins. Pathways involved in the biosynthesis of plant hormones, especially SA and JA, were identified in the _OsVTC1-1_ RNAi line after rice blast inoculation. Our results indicate that a reduction in the expression of the _OsVTC1-1_ gene in the AsA synthesis pathway enhances resistance to rice blast fungus via multiple defense mechanisms. The following are available online at [[https://www.mdpic.com/article/10_.3390/plants11172189/s1](https://www.mdpic.com/article/10_.3390/plants11172189/s1)]([https://www.mdpic.com/article/10_.3390/plants11172189/s1](https://www.mdpic.com/article/10_.3390/plants11172189/s1)), Figure S1: Principal component analysis (PCA) plot of log10 (FPKM+1) values of 100 common genes from WT and _OsVTC1-1_ RNAi lines at 0 and 24 h after rice blast inoculation between three replicates; Figure S2: Heatmap of the expression levels of 100 common genes from WT and _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line at 0 and 24 hpi among three replicates. The color scale on the right represents the fragments per kilobase of transcript per million mapped reads (FPKM) values transformed by log10 (FPKM+1). Red and blue represent high- and low-expression levels of genes, respectively; Figure S3: Plant reactome pathway enrichment analysis. (a) The top 10 enriched plant reactome pathways of DEGs in the _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line between 0 and 24 hpi; (b) The top 10 enriched plant reactome pathways of DEPs in the _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line at 24 hpi; Table S1: Quantification of O\({}^{2}\)- accumulation in a mock-inoculated and rice-blast-infected leaves of WT and _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line using ImageJ software; Table S2: Summary of RNA-seq data and reads mapping; Table S3: FPKM expression values represented as log10 (FPKM+1) values of 100 common genes from WT and _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 lines with three replicates at 0 and 24 hpi; Table S4: Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis of up-regulated DEGs in the _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line between 0 and 24 hpi. The GO categories include biological process (BP), cellular component (CC), and molecular function (MF); Table S5: Plant reactome pathway analysis of up-regulated DEGs in the _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line between 0 and 24 hpi; Table S6: The top 10 gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis of DEPs in the _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line at 24 hpi. The GO categories include biological process (BP), cellular component (CC), and molecular function (MF); Table S7: Plant reactome pathway analysis of DEPs in the _OsVTC1-1_ RI1-2 line at 24 hpi. Conceptualization, C.J. ; data curation, K.L. (Kanyanat Lamanchai) and K.L. (Kantinan Leetanasaksakul); formal analysis, K.L. (Kanyanat Lamanchai), D.L.S., A.N., K.L. (Kantinan Leetanasaksakul) and S.K. ; funding acquisition, C.J. ; investigation, K.L. (Kanyanat Lamanchai); methodology, N.S. and C.J. ; project administration, C.J. ; resources, N.S., S.R. and S.K. ; software, N.S., S.R., K.L. (Kantinan Leetanasaksakul) and S.K. ; supervision, N.S. and D.L.S. ; writing--original draft, K.L. (Kanyanat Lamanchai); writing--review and editing, C.J. and N.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This research was supported by Kastsart University Research and Development Institute (KURDI) project FF(KU)5.64 and National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) as of fiscal year 2021.