The rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe oryzae, is one of the most economically important crop diseases. In addition, rice-M. oryzae interaction is a classical gene-for-gene host-pathogen system. Race variation in pathogen groups was proposed as the main mechanism for rapid break-down of resistance in newly introduced rice cultivars. These new pathogen race variations may be caused by changes in an avirulence gene, such as (i) point mutations, (ii) insertion of transposons, and (iii) frame shifts. The avirulence gene AVR-Pita1 is representative avirulence gene in which all of these mutations are reported. In this review, we present a useful information for avirulence gene AVR-Pita1 and its homologous genes AVR-Pita2 and AVR-Pita3. We also review examples that cause mutations in these evolutionarily significant genes.