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Evolutionary divergence of the rye Pm17 and Pm8 resistance genes reveals ancient diversity

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We have isolated a novel powdery mildew resistance gene in wheat that was originally introgressed from rye. Further analysis revealed evolutionary divergent history of wheat and rye orthologous resistance genes.

Abstract

Wheat production is under constant threat from a number of fungal pathogens, among them is wheat powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici). Deployment of resistance genes is the most economical and sustainable method for mildew control. However, domestication and selective breeding have narrowed genetic diversity of modern wheat germplasm, and breeders have relied on wheat relatives for enriching its gene pool through introgression. Translocations where the 1RS chromosome arm was introgressed from rye to wheat have improved yield and resistance against various pathogens. Here, we isolated the Pm17 mildew resistance gene located on the 1RS introgression in wheat cultivar ‘Amigo’ and found that it is an allele or a close paralog of the Pm8 gene isolated earlier from ‘Petkus’ rye. Functional validation using transient and stable transformation confirmed the identity of Pm17. Analysis of Pm17 and Pm8 coding regions revealed an overall identity of 82.9% at the protein level, with the LRR domains being most divergent. Our analysis also showed that the two rye genes are much more diverse compared to the variants encoded by the Pm3 gene in wheat, which is orthologous to Pm17/Pm8 as concluded from highly conserved upstream sequences in all these genes. Thus, the evolutionary history of these orthologous loci differs in the cereal species rye and wheat and demonstrates that orthologous resistance genes can take different routes towards functionally active genes. These findings suggest that the isolation of Pm3/Pm8/Pm17 orthologs from other grass species, additional alleles from the rye germplasm as well as possibly synthetic variants will result in novel resistance genes useful in wheat breeding.

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Acknowledgements

Seeds of rye cultivar Insave (Nr. 10458) were kindly provided by VIR, Plant genetic resources database, St. Petersburg, Russia through Dr. Viktor Korzun (Head of Cereals Biotechnology, KWS LOCHOW GMBH, Grimsehlstr. 31, 37574 Einbeck, Germany). This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation Grant 310030_163260.

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BK and SB conceived and designed the experiments. SS, SH, MR, PK, DP, GB, and HZ carried out the experiments. SS, MR, JSM, and SH analyzed the data, and BK discussed the data. SS, and MR wrote the manuscript. BK and SB edited the manuscript. All authors read the manuscript and agree with its content.

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Correspondence to Beat Keller.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

GenBank submission: The Pm17 sequence is deposited in the GenBank database with submission ID MH077963.

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Singh, S.P., Hurni, S., Ruinelli, M. et al. Evolutionary divergence of the rye Pm17 and Pm8 resistance genes reveals ancient diversity. Plant Mol Biol 98, 249–260 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-018-0780-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-018-0780-3

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