SBIR Phase II: Identification of disease resistance traits to improve the productivity and sustainability of soybean cultivation

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目的更广泛影响是提高大豆种植的生产力、环境可持续性和盈利能力。大豆种植是热带雨林砍伐的主要驱动力，促进了环境可持续性的提高产量。此外，目前的商品大豆品种对亚洲大豆锈病非常敏感，这是一种侵袭性真菌疾病，在热带和亚热带气候下尤其严重，可以大量减少大豆产量。这种疾病是由化学杀菌剂控制的，但这些杀菌剂价格昂贵，对环境和人类健康构成风险，而且随着病原体对过度使用的化学品产生耐受性，效果越来越差。该项目将使大豆品种对该病害具有免疫力。这将减少大豆种植中使用杀菌剂的需要，减少由病原体造成的产量损失，并提高种植者的盈利能力。此外，这项技术还可以推广到其他作物。本项目旨在鉴定具有抗亚洲大豆锈病活性的植物抗病新性状。典型的植物物种有数百个免疫受体基因，用于监视入侵病原体的存在。植物育种家通常使用植物免疫受体基因来开发新的抗病作物品种。然而，传统的识别和翻译这些特征的方法非常耗时。提出的工作利用快速基因发现平台来加速鉴定新的抗病性状。该项目将识别和测试几种抗性性状。这些抗性基因序列的鉴定和克隆将使它们能够迅速转移到优质大豆品种中，从而相对于传统育种节省大量时间和劳动力。这些特性可以叠加在一起，赋予对亚洲大豆锈病菌株的持久抗性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to improve the productivity, environmental sustainability, and profitability of soybean cultivation. Soybean cultivation is a major driver of rainforest deforestation, motivating improved yields for environmental sustainability. In addition, current commercial soybean varieties are highly susceptible to Asian soybean rust, an aggressive fungal disease that is especially severe in tropical and subtropical climates and can decimate soybean yield. This disease is controlled by chemical fungicides that are expensive, pose risks to the environment and human health, and are becoming less effective as the pathogen develops tolerance to over-used chemicals. This project will enable the development of soybean varieties immune to this disease. This will reduce the need for fungicide use in soybean cultivation, reduce yield loss caused by the pathogen, and improve grower profitability. In addition, this technology can be expanded to other crops.The proposed project will result in the identification of new plant disease resistance traits with activity against the pathogen that causes Asian soybean rust. The typical plant species has hundreds of immune receptor genes which surveil for the presence of invading pathogens. Plant breeders routinely use plant immune receptor genes to develop new disease-resistant crop varieties. However, traditional methods to identify and translate these traits are time-consuming. The proposed work utilizes a rapid gene discovery platform to accelerate identification of new disease resistance traits. This project will identify and test several resistance traits. The identification and cloning of these resistance gene sequences will allow them to be quickly moved into elite soybean varieties, resulting in significant time and labor savings relative to traditional breeding. These traits can be stacked together to confer durable resistance against a broad range of Asian soybean rust strains.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.