Wheat scab resistance gene isolated from the United States

Wheat scab is a global wheat disease, which will cause a sharp decline in crop yield and cause huge losses to global agricultural production every year. According to the latest issue of Nature Genetics, American scientists have made a major breakthrough in cloning resistance genes aimed at eliminating wheat scab. They used advanced wheat genome sequencing technology to isolate the Fhb1 gene with broad-spectrum resistance, which will have an extensive impact not only on wheat scab, but also on the disease resistance of various similar host plants infected by Fusarium graminearum, a fungal pathogen.

The toxin produced by Fusarium graminearum makes infected crops unsuitable for human and animal consumption, and this crop disease is widespread and frequent in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and South America. Wheat scab has always been a difficult problem to solve. After more than 20 years of research, Chinese and American scientists have only found resistance in some specific Chinese native crops.

This time, the research team composed of many universities, such as the University of Maryland and Washington State University, successfully isolated the broad-spectrum resistant Fhb1 gene using advanced wheat genome sequencing technology. The researchers say that once the source of the DNA of resistance is known, the replication of resistance genes can be carried out in a faster way in the laboratory. Once the nature of genes is finally understood, the discovery could also be used to control the decay of crops such as gourds, tomatoes and potatoes caused by other Fusarium oxysporum.

In the future, researchers intend to use Fhb1 to overcome a large number of crop diseases caused by pathogens, and optimize this resistance through breeding, transgenic, genome editing and other techniques, and transfer it to other crops prone to Fusarium infection. (reporter Feng Weidong)