Haplotype variants of the stripe rust resistance gene Yr28 in Aegilops tauschii

Key message: Stripe rust resistance gene YrAet672 from Aegilopstauschii accession CPI110672 encodes a nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat domain containing protein similar to YrAS2388 and both these members were haplotypes of Yr28. Abstract: New sources of host resistance are required to counter the continued emergence of new pathotypes of the wheat stripe rust pathogen Pucciniastriiformis Westend. f. sp. tritici Erikss. (Pst). Here, we show that CPI110672, an Aegilopstauschii accession from Turkmenistan, carries a single Pst resistance gene, YrAet672, that is effective against multiple Pst pathotypes, including the four predominant Pst lineages present in Australia. The YRAet672 locus was fine mapped to the short arm of chromosome 4D, and a nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat gene was identified at the locus. A transgene encoding the YrAet672 genomic sequence, but lacking a copy of a duplicated sequence present in the 3′ UTR, was transformed into wheat cultivar Fielder and Avocet S. This transgene conferred a weak resistance response, suggesting that the duplicated 3′ UTR region was essential for function. Subsequent analyses demonstrated that YrAet672 is the same as two other Pst resistance genes described in Ae.tauschii, namely YrAS2388 and Yr28. They were identified as haplotypes encoding identical protein sequences but are polymorphic in non-translated regions of the gene. Suppression of resistance conferred by YrAet672 and Yr28 in synthetic hexaploid wheat lines (AABBDD) involving Langdon (AABB) as the tetraploid parent was associated with a reduction in transcript accumulation.