Identification of Stripe Rust Resistance Genes in Common Wheat Cultivars From the Huang-Huai-Hai Region of China

Abstract

Wheat stripe (yellow) rust, caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), is a serious fungal disease worldwide, especially in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, a main wheat production area in China. Gene postulation, molecular testing, and pedigree analysis were conducted to determine the presence of stripe rust resistance genes to 15 Pst races in 66 selected commercial wheat cultivars released from 2000 to 2016. In addition, races CYR32, CYR33, and CYR34 were used to evaluate resistance to Pst at the adult-plant stage of wheat in the field. Four Yr genes (Yr9, Yr10, Yr26, and Yr32) were postulated in 24 wheat cultivars either singly or in combination. Thirty-six cultivars might contain unknown Yr genes, whereas no identified Yr gene was postulated in six cultivars. Yr9 was detected at a frequency of 28.8%, and no cultivars carried Yr5, Yr15, or Yr18. Ten cultivars (15.2%) exhibited adult-plant resistance in the field tests with three predominant races. Three cultivars (Langyan 43, Xinong 889, and Yunfeng 139) had all-stage resistance. These results are useful to growers selecting cultivars and to breeders aiming to use more resistance genes to develop new cultivars with effective resistance in order to reduce stripe rust damage.

Identification of Stripe Rust Resistance Genes in Common Wheat Cultivars and Breeding Lines from Kazakhstan

“…Molecular markers are useful for identifying lines with multiple genes and for pyramiding multiple resistance genes, which is difficult and sometimes impossible to do using only phenotypic data [60]. In different previous studies, the sources of Yr resistance genes (Yr9, Yr5, Yr10, Yr15 and Yr18 genes) were identified in winter wheat breeding material [37,61,62]. The result of a study by Zheng et al (2017) showed effective resistance of Yr15 and Yr65 genes; significant additive effects were observed in some gene combinations, such as Yr9+Yr18 and Yr30+Yr46 [63].…”

“…Using this marker, the fragment 260 bp was amplified in tested entries. The molecular marker linked to Yr10, Xpsp3000 amplified fragment size 260 bp in 22 genotypes (Cat# 5, 7, 13,23,28,30,32,33,34,36,37,39,42,45,46,52,54,58,60,61,65,68), while the remaining 48 genotypes were lacking in Yr10 (Figure S4, Table 1). In addition to the SSR Xpsp3000 marker, the SCAR marker linked to Yr10 with a genetic distance of 0.5 cM [53] was chosen to screen the 70 entries in our study.…”

Disease Resistance and Genes in 146 Wheat Cultivars (Lines) from the Huang-Huai-Hai Region of China

“…However, no entries were postulated to carry Yr5 and Yr15 in this study. According to the previous studies, Yr5 has been rarely used in wheat breeding programs in China [50,51], and Yr15 has not been detected in Chinese cultivars [50][51][52][53]. Both Yr5 and Yr15 were successfully cloned in 2018 [30,34], which will facilitate their use in wheat breeding programs in the future.…”

“…Similar to our study, Huang et al [50] also reported that no entries carried Yr18 in 66 selected commercial wheat cultivars. However, Yr18 has a high detection percent in Chinese wheat landraces [53,54]. Moreover, the disease resistance will be improved dramatically if Yr18 is pyramided with other all-stage resistance gene(s) or adult-plant resistance gene(s) [55].…”

Molecular evidence for a new dispersal route of inoculum source for Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici in central and eastern China

“…With the long-distance dispersal of Pstpathogen, it could cause infections more than thousands of kilometers away from initial infected areas which makes it one of the most destructive diseases of wheat in many regions of the world, especially in China (Zeng andLuo 2006, Chen et al 2014). China has the largest independent epidemic region with more than 20 million hectares of wheat affected by stripe rust annually (Stubbs 1988).The most destructive epidemics occurred in 1950, 1964, 1990, 2002, 2009, and 2017, which caused yield losses exceeded 6.0, 3.2, 1.8, 1.3 and 1.5 million metric tons, respectively (Huang et al 2020). Growing disease-resistance varieties have been considered to be the most economical, effective and environmental friendly measures to control wheat stripe rust (Chen et al 2009).…”