A wheat kinase and immune receptor form host-specificity barriers against the blast fungus

  • Published:
  • Authors: Arora S, Steed A, Goddard R, Gaurav K, O'Hara T, Schoen A, Rawat N, Elkot AF, Korolev AV, Chinoy C, Nicholson MH, Asuke S, Antoniou-Kourounioti R, Steuernagel B, Yu G, Awal R, Forner-Martínez M, Wingen L, Baggs E, Clarke J, Saunders DGO, Krasileva KV, Tosa Y, Jones JDG, Tiwari VK, Wulff BBH, Nicholson P (2023)
  • Reference: Nat Plants. 2023 Feb 16. doi: 10.1038/s41477-023-01357-5.

Since emerging in Brazil in 1985, wheat blast has spread throughout South America and recently appeared in Bangladesh and Zambia. Here we show that two wheat resistance genes, Rwt3 and Rwt4, acting as host-specificity barriers against non-Triticum blast pathotypes encode a nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat immune receptor and a tandem kinase, respectively. Molecular isolation of these genes will enable study of the molecular interaction between pathogen effector and host resistance genes.

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