Searching for FHB Resistances in Bread Wheat: Susceptibility at the Crossroad

Abstract

Fusarium head blight (FHB), primarily caused by Fusarium graminearum, is one of the most devastating fungal wheat diseases. During the past decades, many efforts have been deployed to dissect FHB resistance, investigating both the wheat responses to infection and, more recently, the fungal determinants of pathogenicity. Although no total resistance has been identified so far, they demonstrated that some plant functions and the expression of specific genes are needed to promote FHB. Associated with the increasing list of F. graminearum effectors able to divert plant molecular processes, this fact strongly argues for a functional link between susceptibility-related factors and the fate of this disease in wheat. In this review, we gather more recent data concerning the involvement of plant and fungal genes and the functions and mechanisms in the development of FHB susceptibility, and we discuss the possibility to use them to diversify the current sources of FHB resistance.

De Novo Genome Assembly of the Japanese Wheat Cultivar Norin 61 Highlights Functional Variation in Flowering Time andFusarium-Resistant Genes in East Asian Genotypes

“…By contrast, we observed that the TaMRP-D1 variants were linked to the FHB and mycotoxin resistance in the cultivars with the non-semi-dwarf allele of Rht8 . The efficient use of this FHB-QTL on the 2DS region as breeding resource requires the breaking of the linkage drag between the FHB-QTL and semi-dwarfism ( Basnet et al 2012 , Niwa et al 2018 , Fabre et al 2020 ).…”

“…The molecular nature of many QTLs on the FHB-resistant gene is yet to be studied ( Handa et al 2008 , Niwa et al 2018 ). The use of FHB-QTL in 2DS, another gene resource for the FHB resistance of Asian germplasms ( Basnet et al 2012 , Niwa et al 2018 , Fabre et al 2020 ), was hampered by its linkage to the non-semi-dwarf allele of Rht8 and so will be facilitated by further studies to allow pyramiding the FHB-resistant alleles. We propose that the de novo genome assembly of Norin 61 will open the way to analysis of the functional variants and evolution of East Asian wheat.…”

Proteomics-Based Data Integration of Wheat Cultivars Facing Fusarium graminearum Strains Revealed a Core-Responsive Pattern Controlling Fusarium Head Blight

“…While recent studies have shown that different mutations inducing the TaHRC gene loss of function explain part of this Fhb1-mediated resistance (Li et al, 2019;Su et al, 2019), further works have either suggested a role for the WFhb1-1 gene through its potential antifungal activity (Paudel et al, 2020) or for the TaLAC4 gene whose mutation leads to an increase of FHB susceptibility (Soni et al, 2020). In addition to the current sources of FHB resistance, several works introduced alternative forms of resistance via the identification of wheat genes involved in the success of the disease (reviewed in Fabre et al, 2020). By definition, any plant gene that facilitates infection and that promotes compatibility with pathogens can be considered as a susceptibility gene (van Schie and Takken, 2014).…”

Screening of Durum Wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum (Desf.) Husn.) Italian Cultivars for Susceptibility to Fusarium Head Blight Incited by Fusarium graminearum

“…Furthermore, tests in different environmental conditions are needed to verify the susceptibility of wheat germplasm to FHB as the severity of the disease is influenced by climatic conditions and may result in a large variability of the interaction between genotype and environment [ 5 , 14 ]. Over 500 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) conferring small to moderate effects on the different FHB resistance types have been reported in wheat [ 15 , 16 ].…”