Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Communication

Description: Rust fungi belonging to the genus Puccinia have an important impact on wheat cultivation and human food security worldwide. Routinely rust infections are managed through the effective use of genetic resistance, an innate ability in plants to resist pests and pathogens. While the modern wheat cultivars are prone to attack by the recently evolved rust strains, the historical collection of domesticated wheat and its wild relatives are resilient due to enriched genetic diversity. We mapped, identified, and characterised a few rust resistance genes from wheat and its progenitor and wild relatives through map-based cloning. However, due to the large and complex nature of the wheat genome, this conventional process is tedious and time-consuming. But with the near-complete sequencing of the wheat genome and advancements in DNA capture and sequencing, we have developed robust strategies to accelerate resistance gene cloning. Further, through gene cassette technology, we combined and introduced multiple and diverse rust resistance genes in a common wheat cultivar. In parallel, we have made progress in accelerating rust pathogen surveillance through effective integration of DNA sequencing techniques that will ensure precise selection of resistance genes to protect wheat from the newly emerged rust strains.