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Molecular approaches for characterization and use of natural disease resistance in wheat

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Abstract

Wheat production is threatened by a constantly changing population of pathogen species and races. Given the rapid ability of many pathogens to overcome genetic resistance, the identification and practical implementation of new sources of resistance is essential. Landraces and wild relatives of wheat have played an important role as genetic resources for the improvement of disease resistance. The use of molecular approaches, particularly molecular markers, has allowed better characterization of the genetic diversity in wheat germplasm. In addition, the molecular cloning of major resistance (R) genes has recently been achieved in the large, polyploid wheat genome. For the first time this allows the study and analysis of the genetic variability of wheat R loci at the molecular level and therefore, to screen for allelic variation at such loci in the gene pool. Thus, strategies such as allele mining and ecotilling are now possible for characterization of wheat disease resistance. Here, we discuss the approaches, resources and potential tools to characterize and utilize the naturally occurring resistance diversity in wheat. We also report a first step in allele mining, where we characterize the occurrence of known resistance alleles at the wheat Pm3 powdery mildew resistance locus in a set of 1,320 landraces assembled on the basis of eco-geographical criteria. From known Pm3 R alleles, only Pm3b was frequently identified (3% of the tested accessions). In the same set of landraces, we found a high frequency of a Pm3 haplotype carrying a susceptible allele of Pm3. This analysis allowed the identification of a set of resistant lines where new potentially functional alleles would be present. Newly identified resistance alleles will enrich the genetic basis of resistance in breeding programmes and contribute to wheat improvement.

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Acknowledgements

The reported research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant 3100-105620.We also gratefully acknowledge the gene banks of AWCC (Australia), ICARDA (Syria) and VIR (Russia) for providing us with the FIGS powdery mildew set of landraces.

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  1. Nabila Yahiaoui

    Present address: UMR Biologie et Génétique des Interactions Plante-Parasite CIRAD TA A-54/K Campus International de Baillarguet, 34398, Montpellier cedex 15, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zurich, Zollikerstrasse 107, 8008, Zürich, Switzerland

    Navreet Kaur, Nabila Yahiaoui & Beat Keller

  2. ICARDA, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria

    Kenneth Street

  3. Australian Winter Cereals Collection, 4 Marsden Park Road, Calala, NSW, 2340, Australia

    Michael Mackay

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  1. Navreet Kaur
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  2. Kenneth Street
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  3. Michael Mackay
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  4. Nabila Yahiaoui
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  5. Beat Keller
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Correspondence to Beat Keller.

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Kaur, N., Street, K., Mackay, M. et al. Molecular approaches for characterization and use of natural disease resistance in wheat. Eur J Plant Pathol 121, 387–397 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-007-9252-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-007-9252-3

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