Fusarium head blight (FHB), which is mainly caused by Fusarium graminearum, is a destructive wheat disease that threatens global wheat production. Fhb1, a quantitative trait locus discovered in Chinese germplasm, provides the most stable and the largest effect on FHB resistance in wheat. Here we show that TaHRC, a gene that encodes a putative histidine-rich calcium-binding protein, is the key determinant of Fhb1-mediated resistance to FHB. We demonstrate that TaHRC encodes a nuclear protein conferring FHB susceptibility and that a deletion spanning the start codon of this gene results in FHB resistance. Identical sequences of the TaHRC-R allele in diverse accessions indicate that Fhb1 had a single origin, and phylogenetic and haplotype analyses suggest that the TaHRC-R allele most likely originated from a line carrying the Dahongpao haplotype. This discovery opens a new avenue to improve FHB resistance in wheat, and possibly in other cereal crops, by manipulating TaHRC sequence through bioengineering approaches.
1.Kansas State Univ, Dept Agron, Manhattan, KS 66506 USA 2.Hebei Acad Agr & Forestry Sci, Inst Cereal & Oil Crops, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, Peoples R China 3.Kansas State Univ, Dept Plant Pathol, Throckmorton Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506 USA 4.Jiangsu Acad Agr Sci, Inst Food Crops, Nanjing, Jiangsu, Peoples R China 5.Yangzhou Univ, Coll Agr, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, Peoples R China 6.USDA ARS, Hard Winter Wheat Genet Res Unit, Manhattan, KS 66506 USA 7.Iowa State Univ, Dept Agron, Ames, IA USA 8.Chinese Acad Agr Sci, Crop Inst, Beijing, Peoples R China
Recommended Citation:
Su, Zhenqi,Bernardo, Amy,Tian, Bin,et al. A deletion mutation in TaHRC confers Fhb1 resistance to Fusarium head blight in wheat[J]. NATURE GENETICS,2019-01-01,51(7):1099-+