Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2014 Nov 24:5:641.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00641. eCollection 2014.

The past, present and future of breeding rust resistant wheat

Jeffrey G Ellis  1 , Evans S Lagudah  1 , Wolfgang Spielmeyer  1 , Peter N Dodds  1
Affiliations
Review

The past, present and future of breeding rust resistant wheat

Jeffrey G Ellis et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

Two classes of genes are used for breeding rust resistant wheat. The first class, called R (for resistance) genes, are pathogen race specific in their action, effective at all plant growth stages and probably mostly encode immune receptors of the nucleotide binding leucine rich repeat (NB-LRR) class. The second class is called adult plant resistance genes (APR) because resistance is usually functional only in adult plants, and, in contrast to most R genes, the levels of resistance conferred by single APR genes are only partial and allow considerable disease development. Some but not all APR genes provide resistance to all isolates of a rust pathogen species and a subclass of these provides resistance to several fungal pathogen species. Initial indications are that APR genes encode a more heterogeneous range of proteins than R proteins. Two APR genes, Lr34 and Yr36, have been cloned from wheat and their products are an ABC transporter and a protein kinase, respectively. Lr34 and Sr2 have provided long lasting and widely used (durable) partial resistance and are mainly used in conjunction with other R and APR genes to obtain adequate rust resistance. We caution that some APR genes indeed include race specific, weak R genes which may be of the NB-LRR class. A research priority to better inform rust resistance breeding is to characterize further APR genes in wheat and to understand how they function and how they interact when multiple APR and R genes are stacked in a single genotype by conventional and GM breeding. An important message is do not be complacent about the general durability of all APR genes.

Keywords: GM wheat; Puccinia; adult plant resistance (APR); disease resistance gene; wheat biotechnology; wheat rust.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Axtell M. J., Staskawicz B. J. (2003). Initiation of RPS2-Specified disease resistance in Arabidopsis is coupled to the AvrRpt2-directed elimination of RIN4. Cell 112 369–377 10.1016/S0092-8674(03)00036-9 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bernoux M., Ve T., Williams S., Warren C., Hatters D., Valkov E., et al. (2011). Structural and functional analysis of a plant resistance protein TIR domain reveals interfaces for self-association, signaling, and autoregulation. Cell Host Microbe 9 200–211 10.1016/j.chom.2011.02.009 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bettgenhaeuser J., Gilbert B., Ayliffe M., Moscou M. J. (2014). Nonhost resistance to rust pathogens a continuation of continua. Front. Plant Sci. 5:664 10.3389/fpls.2014.00664 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bomblies K., Lempe J., Epple P., Warthmann N., Lanz C., Dangl J. L., et al. (2007). Autoimmune response as a mechanism for a Dobzhansky-Muller-type incompatibility syndrome in plants. PLoS Biol. 5:e236 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050236 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brueggeman R., Druka A., Nirmala J., Cavileer T., Drader T., Rostoks N., et al. (2008). The stem rust resistance gene Rpg5 encodes a protein with nucleotide-binding-site, leucine-rich, and protein kinase domains. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105 14970–14975 10.1073/pnas.0807270105 - DOI - PMC - PubMed