Novel Sources of Resistance to Stagonospora nodorum and Role of Effector-Susceptibility Gene Interactions in Wheat of Russian Breeding

Abstract

Virulence factors of the pathogen Stagonospora nodorum Berk. are numerous necrotrophic effectors (NEs) (SnTox), which interact with the products of host susceptibility genes (Snn), causing the development of the disease. In this study, 55 accessions of bread spring and winter wheat were screened for sensitivity to NEs SnToxA, SnTox1, and SnTox3 using different isolates of S. nodorum. In the studied panel of wheat, 47 accessions were modern commercial cultivars grown in Russia and 8 cultivars were historic wheat accessions from the N. I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources in Russia. In general, our wheat panel differed from other wheat collections with available data in that it was less sensitive to SnToxA and SnTox3, and more sensitive to SnTox1. Six sources of strong SNB resistance were identified in our wheat panel. In addition, during the study, wheat cultivars were identified as appropriate objects in which to study the different effects of SnTox-Snn interactions, which is important for marker-assisted selection for SNB resistance. The current study has shown, for the first time, that the expression level of Snn1 and Tsn1 susceptibility genes and the disease severity of the different wheat cultivars are interconnected. Future work should focus on the deep characterization of SnTox-Snn interactions at the molecular level.