Characterization of the Genetic Architecture for Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in Durum Wheat: The Complex Association of Resistance, Flowering Time, and Height Genes

Durum wheat is an economically important crop for Canadian farmers. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the most destructive diseases that threatens durum production in Canada. FHB reduces yield and end-use quality and most commonly contaminates the grain with the fungal mycotoxin deoxynivalenol, also known as DON. Serious outbreaks of FHB can occur in durum wheat in Canada, and combining genetic resistance with fungicide application is a cost effective approach to control this disease. However, there is limited variation for genetic resistance to FHB in elite Canadian durum cultivars. To explore and identify useful genetic FHB resistance variation for the improvement of Canadian durum wheat, we assembled an association mapping (AM) panel of diverse durum germplasms and performed genome wide association analysis (GWAS). Thirty-one quantitative trait loci (QTL) across all 14 chromosomes were significantly associated with FHB resistance. On 3BS, a stable QTL with a larger effect for resistance was located close to the centromere of 3BS. Three haplotypes of Fhb1 QTL were identified, with an emmer wheat haplotype contributing to disease susceptibility. The large number of QTL identified here can provide a rich resource to improve FHB resistance in commercially grown durum wheat. Among the 31 QTL most were associated with plant height and/or flower time. QTL 1A.1, 1A.2, 3B.2, 5A.1, 6A.1, 7A.3 were associated with FHB resistance and not associated or only weakly associated with flowering time nor plant height. These QTL have features that would make them good targets for FHB resistance breeding.

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Alien chromatin but not Fhb7 confers Fusarium head blight resistance in wheat breeding

10.1101/2021.02.03.429547 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Xianrui Guo ◽

Qinghua Shi ◽

Jing Yuan ◽

Mian Wang ◽

Jing Wang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Fusarium Head Blight Resistance ◽

Resistance Breeding ◽

Wheat Breeding ◽

Glutathione S Transferase ◽

Head Blight ◽

Fhb Resistance ◽

Translocation Lines ◽

High Level ◽

Thinopyrum Elongatum

AbstractFusarium head blight (FHB), caused by Fusarium species, seriously threaten global wheat production. Three wheat-Th.elongatum FHB resistant translocation lines have been developed and used for breeding. Transcriptomic analysis identified a derivative glutathione S-transferase transcript T26102, which was homologous to Fhb7 and induced dramatically by Fusarium graminearum. Homologs of Fhb7 were detected in several genera in Triticeae, including Thinopyrum, Elymus, Leymus, Pseudoroegeria and Roegeria. Several wheat-Thinopyrum translocation lines carrying Fhb7 remain susceptible to FHB, and transgenic plants overexpressing the T26102 on different backgrounds did not improve the FHB resistance. Taken as a whole, we show the application of the chromatin derived from diploid Thinopyrum elongatum successfully conferring wheat with high level FHB resistance independent of the Fhb7.One Sentence SummaryThinopyrum elongatum chromatin from 7EL was successfully applied to wheat FHB resistance breeding, but the resistant gene other than the reported Fhb7 remained unknown.

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Genomic predictions for Fusarium head blight resistance in a diverse durum wheat panel: an effective incorporation of plant height and heading date as covariates

Euphytica ◽

10.1007/s10681-019-2551-x ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 216 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Jose Moreno-Amores ◽

Sebastian Michel ◽

Thomas Miedaner ◽

C. Friedrich H. Longin ◽

Hermann Buerstmayr

Keyword(s):

Durum Wheat ◽

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Plant Height ◽

Heading Date ◽

Fusarium Head Blight Resistance ◽

Blight Resistance ◽

Head Blight ◽

Genomic Predictions

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Dissecting the Contribution of Environmental Influences, Plant Phenology, and Disease Resistance to Improving Genomic Predictions for Fusarium Head Blight Resistance in Wheat

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy10122008 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 2008

Author(s):

Jose Moreno-Amores ◽

Sebastian Michel ◽

Franziska Löschenberger ◽

Hermann Buerstmayr

Keyword(s):

Linear Regression ◽

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Genomic Selection ◽

Linear Regression Analysis ◽

Fusarium Head Blight Resistance ◽

Resistance Breeding ◽

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis ◽

Head Blight ◽

Severity Scores ◽

Fhb Resistance

Environmental factors like temperature and humidity are presumed to greatly influence Fusarium head blight FHB infections in wheat. Anther retention AR, on the other hand, is a morphologically neutral trait that shares a common genetic basis with FHB resistance. In this study, our aims were to: (i) Evaluate two types of corrections of FHB severity scores, namely method-1 via linear regression on flowering time (FT), and method-2 via a best-subset multiple linear regression analysis comprising FT plus accumulated thermal time variables; and (ii) assess the performance of multi-trait genomic selection (MT.GS) models for FHB severity assisted by AR. The forward prediction scenarios where GS models were trained with data from the previous years revealed average prediction accuracies (PA) of 0.28, 0.33, and 0.36 for FHB severity scores that were uncorrected or corrected by method-1 and method-2, respectively. FHB severity scores free from the influences of both environment and phenology seemed to be the most efficient trait to be predicted across different seasons. Average PA increments up to 1.9-fold were furthermore obtained for the MT.GS models, evidencing the feasibility of using AR as an assisting trait to improve the genomic selection of FHB resistance breeding lines.

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Characterizing Winter Wheat Germplasm for Fusarium Head Blight Resistance Under Accelerated Growth Conditions

Frontiers in Plant Science ◽

10.3389/fpls.2021.705006 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Mustafa Zakieh ◽

David S. Gaikpa ◽

Fernanda Leiva Sandoval ◽

Marwan Alamrani ◽

Tina Henriksson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Winter Wheat ◽

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Fusarium Head Blight Resistance ◽

Resistance Breeding ◽

Growth Conditions ◽

Head Blight ◽

Wheat Germplasm ◽

Progress Curve ◽

Accelerated Growth ◽

Fhb Resistance

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is one of the economically important diseases of wheat as it causes severe yield loss and reduces grain quality. In winter wheat, due to its vernalization requirement, it takes an exceptionally long time for plants to reach the heading stage, thereby prolonging the time it takes for characterizing germplasm for FHB resistance. Therefore, in this work, we developed a protocol to evaluate winter wheat germplasm for FHB resistance under accelerated growth conditions. The protocol reduces the time required for plants to begin heading while avoiding any visible symptoms of stress on plants. The protocol was tested on 432 genotypes obtained from a breeding program and a genebank. The mean area under disease progress curve for FHB was 225.13 in the breeding set and 195.53 in the genebank set, indicating that the germplasm from the genebank set had higher resistance to FHB. In total, 10 quantitative trait loci (QTL) for FHB severity were identified by association mapping. Of these, nine QTL were identified in the combined set comprising both genebank and breeding sets, while two QTL each were identified in the breeding set and genebank set, respectively, when analyzed separately. Some QTLs overlapped between the three datasets. The results reveal that the protocol for FHB evaluation integrating accelerated growth conditions is an efficient approach for FHB resistance breeding in winter wheat and can be even applied to spring wheat after minor modifications.

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Exploring Fusarium Head Blight Resistance In a Winter Triticale Germplasm Collection

10.20944/preprints202104.0300.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sydney Wallace ◽

Bhavit Chhabra ◽

Yanhong Dong ◽

Xuefeng Ma ◽

Gary Coleman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Genetic Resistance ◽

Fusarium Head Blight Resistance ◽

Germplasm Collection ◽

Wheat Breeding ◽

Head Blight ◽

Winter Triticale ◽

New Varieties ◽

Fhb Resistance ◽

Grain Yield And Quality

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a destructive disease affecting the grain yield and quality of wheat, barley, rye and triticale. Developing varieties with genetic resistance is integral to successfully managing FHB. However, significant knowledge gap exists in the genetic diversity present in triticale for FHB resistance. This information is critical for breeding new varieties of triticale as its production continues to increase. In the present study, a set of 298 winter triticale accessions from a worldwide collection were screened for their type-2 FHB resistance in an artificially inoculated misted nursery with high levels of inoculum density. Most of the triticale accessions were susceptible to FHB, and only 8% of accessions showed resistance in the field nursery screening. The resistant accessions identified in the nursery screening were selected and further screened for three years in greenhouse conditions. Seven accessions were found to show robust FHB resistance over the three years of greenhouse testing. Thirteen accessions showed significantly lower levels of Deoxynivalenol accumulation when compared to the susceptible triticale control. The accessions identified in the study will be useful in triticale and wheat breeding programs for enhancing FHB resistance and reducing DON accumulation.

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Masked mycotoxins: does breeding for enhanced Fusarium head blight resistance result in more deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside in new wheat varieties?

World Mycotoxin Journal ◽

10.3920/wmj2015.2029 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 741-754 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

M. Lemmens ◽

B. Steiner ◽

M. Sulyok ◽

P. Nicholson ◽

A. Mesterhazy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Animal Health ◽

Fusarium Head Blight Resistance ◽

Resistance Breeding ◽

Head Blight ◽

Concentration Data ◽

Relative Level ◽

Wheat Varieties ◽

Fhb Resistance ◽

Highly Correlated

From economic and environmental points of view, enhancing resistance to Fusarium head blight (FHB) in wheat is regarded as the best option to reduce fungal colonisation and the concomitant mycotoxin contamination. This review focuses on the effect of FHB resistance on deoxynivalenol (DON) and the masked metabolite deoxynivalenol-3-glucoside (DON-3-glucoside) in wheat. Based on published information complemented with our own results we draw the following conclusions: (1) All investigated wheat cultivars can convert DON to DON-3-glucoside. Hence, detoxification of DON to DON-3-glucoside is not a new trait introduced by recent resistance breeding against FHB. (2) The amount of DON-3-glucoside relative to DON contamination can be substantial (up to 35%) and is among other things dependent on genetic and environmental factors. (3) Correlation analyses showed a highly significant relationship between the amount of FHB symptoms and DON contamination: breeding for FHB resistance reduces DON contamination. (4) DON contamination data are highly correlated with DON-3-glucoside concentration data: in other words, reduction of DON content through resistance breeding results in a concomitant reduction in DON-3-glucoside content. (5) The DON-3-glucoside/DON ratio increases with decreasing DON contamination: the most resistant lines with the lowest DON contamination show the highest relative level of DON-3-glucoside to DON. In summary, introgressing FHB resistance reduces both DON and DON-3-glucoside levels in the grain, but the reduction is lower for the masked toxin. DON-3-glucoside can represent a possible hazard to human and animal health, especially in wheat samples contaminated with DON close to permitted limits.

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Screening of an EMS mutagenized population of a wheat cultivar susceptible to Fusarium head blight identifies resistant variants

Plant Disease ◽

10.1094/pdis-03-21-0670-re ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Bhavit Chhabra ◽

Lovepreet Singh ◽

Sydney Wallace ◽

Adam Schoen ◽

Yanhong Dong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fusarium Head Blight ◽

Wheat Cultivar ◽

Genetic Resistance ◽

Field Testing ◽

Head Blight ◽

Point Of Sale ◽

Alternative Approaches ◽

Small Grains ◽

Fhb Resistance ◽

Mutant Lines

Fusarium head blight (FHB) primarily caused by Fusarium graminearum is a key disease of small grains. Diseased spikes show symptoms of premature bleaching shortly after infection and have aborted or shriveled seeds, resulting in reduced yields. The fungus also deteriorates quality and safety of the grain due to production of mycotoxins, especially deoxynivalenol (DON), which can result in grain being docked or rejected at the point of sale. Genetic host resistance to FHB is quantitative and no complete genetic resistance against this devastating disease is available. Alternative approaches to develop new sources of FHB resistance are needed. In this study, we performed extensive forward genetic screening of the M4 generation of an EMS induced mutagenized population of cultivar Jagger to isolate variants with FHB resistance. In field testing, 74 mutant lines were found to have resistance against FHB spread and 30 lines out of these also had low DON content. Subsequent testing over two years in controlled greenhouse conditions revealed ten M6 lines showing significantly lower FHB spread. Seven and six lines out of those 10 lines also had reduced DON content and lower FDKs, respectively. Future endeavors will include identification of the mutations that led to resistance in these variants.

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