New Investigator Award: Rapid identification of genes and pathways that increase resistance to yellow rust disease of wheat

锈病是小麦最具破坏性的病害之一，在英国和全球范围内造成严重的产量损失。小麦和所有植物一样，具有复杂的免疫系统，目前在农业中部署不足。该项目的目的是通过分离新的抗锈病资源并将其迅速用于小麦育种计划来改良栽培小麦。小麦是地球上最普遍的植物，因为小麦作物占世界农业用地的近25%。全球小麦年产量超过6.5亿吨，为人类提供了四分之一的卡路里和五分之一的蛋白质供应，但年产量增长严重低于养活不断增长的人口所需的速度。根据世界银行的预测，到2050年，农业生产率需要提高70%才能养活90亿人。种植抗病小麦品种是一种既经济又环保的解决方案，可以提高现有农田的产量，同时降低种植成本。作为一名新的研究员，我正在建立一个研究计划，重点是提高小麦对各种真菌疾病的抵抗力。我正在利用最新的技术进步，如切割年龄序列技术，有效地研究高度复杂的小麦基因组。我计划快速鉴定来自栽培小麦的新的抗锈病基因，并使这些基因可用于传统的非转基因育种计划。我已经对新的小麦抗条锈病突变体进行了筛选，我认为这些突变体是新颖的，可以成为新的抗病来源。通过测试我们的小麦品系对各种小麦病原菌的抗性，包括霉病和褐斑病，我的团队将确定广谱抗性的来源。通过以高效的方式应用新的测序技术，我们将极大地将小麦基因分离的时间从15-20年减少到仅2-3年。此外，我的目标是研究植物抗性的机制，并研究这些机制的进化及其在小麦中的多样性。从栽培小麦中分离出新的抗锈病基因将使这些重要的经济性状立即可用于正在进行的小麦育种计划。由于我们的抗病来源来自优良品种，因此可以通过常规的非转基因方式实现这种导入。了解新抗病基因的基因组位置是加速这一过程的关键。这里开发的基因分离方法将适用于任何感兴趣的性状。我提议的项目的主要成果将是新的抗病基因和植物育种者可以用来将抗性引入最常见的高产小麦品种的新工具。我预计这个项目不仅对小麦育种者和小麦种植者，而且对整个社会都有很大的好处。深入了解植物防御系统并将其用于控制植物病害是增加粮食供应和减少杀虫剂使用的及时、经济的解决方案。

Rust is one of the most devastating diseases of wheat, causing severe yield losses in the UK and globally. Wheat, similar to all plants, has a sophisticated immune system that is currently under-deployed in agriculture. The aim of this project is to improve cultivated wheat by isolating novel sources of rust disease resistance and making them rapidly available to wheat breeding programs. Wheat is the most prevailing plant on earth as wheat crops occupy nearly 25% of world agricultural land. With annual production at more than 650 million tons globally, wheat provides a quarter of all calories and fifth of protein supply to humanity, and yet the annual yield increases are critically below the rate required to feed the growing human population. According to the predictions from the World Bank, agricultural productivity will need to increase as much as 70% to feed 9 billion people by 2050. Growing wheat varieties resistant to diseases is an economical and environmentally friendly solution to increase yield on available agricultural land while reducing growth costs.As a New Investigator, I am establishing a research programme focused on improving resistance of wheat to a broad range of fungal diseases. I am leveraging recent technological advances, such as cutting-age sequence technologies, for the efficient study of highly complex wheat genome. I plan to rapidly identify novel rust resistance genes derived from cultivated wheat and make these genes accessible to traditional non-transgenic breeding programmes. I have already carried out a screen for new yellow rust resistant mutants of wheat that I believe are novel and can be a new source of disease resistance. By testing resistance in our wheat lines against a variety of wheat pathogens, including mildews and Septoria leaf spot, my group will identify sources of broad-spectrum resistance. By applying new sequencing technologies in a highly efficient manner we will dramatically reduce the time of wheat gene isolation from 15-20 years to just 2-3 years. Furthermore, I am aiming to investigate the mechanisms of plant resistance and to study the evolution of these mechanisms and their diversity in wheat. Isolation of novel rust resistance genes that are derived from cultivated wheat will make these economically important traits immediately available for ongoing wheat breading programs. As our sources of resistance are derived from elite cultivars, such introduction can be achieved with conventional non-transgenic manner. Knowing the genomic locations of new disease resistance is key to accelerate this process. The gene isolation approach developed here will be applicable to any trait of interest.The major output of my proposed project will be new disease resistance genes and the new tools that plant breeders can use to introduce resistance into the most commonly grown, high yielding wheat varieties. I foresee a great benefit from this project not only to wheat breeders and wheat growers, but also to society in general. Advanced understanding of plant defense systems and deploying it to control plant diseases is a timely economical solution to increase food supply and reduce use of pesticides.