Molecular Mapping of a Novel Quantitative Trait Locus Conferring Adult Plant Resistance to Stripe Rust in Chinese Wheat Landrace Guangtoumai

Abstract

Stripe rust (yellow rust), caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), is one of the most destructive diseases of wheat in the world. Chinese wheat landrace ‘Guangtoumai’ (GTM) exhibited a high-level resistance against predominant Pst races in China at the adult-plant stage. The objective of this research was to identify and map the major locus/loci for stripe rust resistance in GTM. A set of 212 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was developed from a cross between GTM and Avocet S (AvS). The parents and RILs were evaluated in three field tests (2018, 2019, and 2020 at Chongzhou, Sichuan) with the currently predominant Pst races for final disease severity (FDS) and genotyped with the Wheat 55K SNP array to construct a genetic map with 1,031 SNP markers. A major locus, named QYr.GTM-5DL, was detected on chromosome 5DL in GTM. The locus was mapped in a 2.75 cM interval flanked by SNP markers AX-109855976 and AX-109453419, explaining up to 44.4% of the total phenotypic variation. Since no known Yr genes have been reported on chromosome 5DL, QYr.GTM-5DL is very likely a novel adult plant resistance (APR) locus. Haplotype analysis revealed that the resistance allele displayed enhanced levels of stripe rust resistance and is likely present in 5.3% of the 247 surveyed Chinese wheat landraces. The derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (dCAPS) marker dCAPS-5722, converted from a SNP marker tightly linked to QYr.GTM-5DL with 0.3 cM, was validated on a subset of RILs and 48 commercial wheat cultivars developed in Sichuan. The results indicated that QYr.GTM-5DL with its linked dCAPS marker could be used in marker-assisted selection to improve stripe rust resistance in breeding programs, and this QTL will provide new and possibly durable resistance to stripe rust.