Abstract
Background: Septoria tritici blotch (STB) has marked durum wheat production worldwide. This fungal disease is until today a challenge for farmers, researchers and breeders all united in the aim of reducing its damage and improving wheat resistance. Tunisian durum wheat landraces were reported to be valuable genetic resources for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and are therefore prominently deployed in breeding programs to develop new varieties adapted to fungal diseases as STB and to climate change constraints overall.Results: A total of 366 local durum wheat accessions were assessed for resistance to two virulent Tunisian isolates of Zymoseptoria tritici Tun06 and TM220 under field conditions. Population structure analysis of the durum wheat accessions, performed with 286 polymorphic SNPs (PIC >0.3) covering the entire genome, identified three genetic subpopulations (GS1, GS2 and GS3) with 22% of admixed genotypes. Interestingly, all of the resistant genotypes were among GS2 or admixed with GS2. Conclusions: This study revealed the population structure and the genetic distribution of the resistance to Z. tritici in the Tunisian durum wheat landraces. The grouping pattern of accessions appear to be associated, to some extent, with the geographical pattern of the landraces. We suggested that GS2 accessions were mostly introduced from eastern Mediterranean populations, unlike GS1 and GS3 that originated from the west. Resistant GS2 accessions belonged to landraces Taganrog, Sbei glabre, Richi, Mekki, Badri, Jneh Khotifa and Azizi. Furthermore, we suggested that admixture contributed to transmit STB resistance from GS2 resistant landraces to initially susceptible landraces such as Mahmoudi (GS1), but also resulted in the loss of resistance in the case of GS2 suscpetible Azizi and Jneh Khotifa accessions.
SNP-Based Genetic Structure of Tunisian Durum Wheat Landraces and Distribution of the Resistance to Septoria Tritici Blotch
