Dwarfing Genes Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b Are Associated with Both Type I FHB Susceptibility and Low Anther Extrusion in Two Bread Wheat Populations
September
Dwarfing Genes Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b Are Associated with Both Type I FHB Susceptibility and Low Anther Extrusion in Two Bread Wheat Populations
Xinyao He 0 1
Pawan K. Singh 0 1
Susanne Dreisigacker 0 1
Sukhwinder Singh 0 1
Morten Lillemo 1
Etienne Duveiller 0 1
0 International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Apdo. Postal 6-641, 06600 Mexico DF , Mexico , 2 Department of Plant Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences , P.O. Box 5003, NO-1432 Ås , Norway
1 Editor: Aimin Zhang, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology Chinese Academy of Sciences , CHINA
It has been well documented that dwarfing genes Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b are associated with Type I susceptibility to Fusarium head blight (FHB) in wheat; but the underlying mechanism has not been well delineated. Anther extrusion (AE) has also been related to Type I resistance for initial FHB infection, where high AE renders FHB resistance. In this study, two doubled haploid populations were used to investigate the impact of the two dwarfing genes on FHB resistance and AE, and to elucidate the role of AE in Rht-mediated FHB susceptibility. Both populations were derived by crossing the FHB susceptible cultivar 'Ocoroni F86' (Rht-B1a/Rht-D1b) with an FHB resistant variety (Rht-B1b/Rht-D1a), which was 'TRAP#1/BOW//Taigu derivative' in one population (the TO population) and 'Ivan/Soru#2' in the other (the IO population). Field experiments were carried out from 2010 to 2012 in El Batán, Mexico, where spray inoculation was adopted and FHB index, plant height (PH), and AE were evaluated, with the latter two traits showing always significantly negative correlations with FHB severity. The populations were genotyped with the DArTseq GBS platform, the two dwarfing genes and a few SSRs for QTL analysis, and the results indicated that Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b collectively accounted for 0-41% of FHB susceptibility and 13-23% of reduced AE. It was also observed that three out of the four AE QTL in the TO population and four out of the five AE QTL in the IO population were associated with FHB resistance. Collectively, our results demonstrated the effects of Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b on Type I FHB susceptibility and reducing AE, and proposed that their impacts on Type I FHB susceptibility may partly be explained by their effects on reducing AE. The implication of the relationship between the two dwarfing genes and AE for hybrid wheat breeding was also discussed.
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OPEN ACCESS
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: This work was supported by CGIAR
Research Program on Wheat and ‘Seeds of
Discovery’-Sustainable Modernization of Traditional
Agriculture project (MasAgro). Xinyao He was
financially supported by a CGIAR scholarship,
provided by the Research Council of Norway, through
NFR project 208340/H30. The funders had no role in
study design, data collection and analysis, decision to
publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
Introduction
Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a notorious wheat disease prevailing in warm and humid
environments, exerting global impact on food and feed safety due to the presence of mycotoxins
produced by Fusarium species, the causal agents of FHB [
1, 2
]. Deoxynivalenol (DON) has
been considered the most important FHB-related mycotoxin and legislation has been set up in
many countries/organizations for controlling DON content in food and feed [3].
Host resistance to FHB is of quantitative inheritance and influenced significantly by
environment [
4
], making breeding for this trait a difficult task. Multiple mechanisms of host
resistance to FHB has been recognized, including Type I for resistance to initial infection, Type II
for spread of pathogen in spike tissues, Type III for DON accumulation, Type IV for kernel
infection, and Type V for yield reduction [
5, 6
]. In relation to food safety, Type III resistance is
the most important; but so far no validated QTL specific for this resistance mechanism has
been identified [7], and some researchers still regard it as a consequence of FHB infection and
not an independent trait [
1
]. Of the first two resistance mechanisms, Type I resistance
exhibited more frequent association with phenological, morphological, and flower biology traits,
such as days to heading (DH), plant height (PH) and anther extrusion (AE) [
8–11
].
The negative association between PH and FHB susceptibility in wheat has long been
observed, and it happened also in barley and oat [
12–14
]. Three possible mechanisms have
been proposed for the association, i.e. disease escape, pleiotropy of reduced height (Rht) genes,
and tight linkage [
3
]. In the last decade researches provided molecular evidence for this
relationship and several QTL responsible for both FHB and PH were identified, including Rht-B1,
Rht-D1 and Rht8 [
9
]. Dwarfing genes Rht- (...truncated)