Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Theoretical and Applied Genetics https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-020-03654-5 ORIGINAL ARTICLE A durum wheat adult plant stripe rust resistance QTL and its relationship with the bread wheat Yr80 locus Hongyu Li 1,3  · Harbans Bariana 2  · Davinder Singh 2  · Lianquan Zhang 3  · Shannon Dillon 1  · Alex Whan 1  · Urmil Bansal 2  · Michael Aylife 1 Received: 1 April 2020 / Accepted: 8 July 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract Key message A stripe rust resistance QTL in durum wheat maps near the bread wheat Yr80 locus with the latter reduced to 15 candidate genes. Abstract Some wheat adult plant resistance (APR) genes provide partial resistance in the later stages of plant develop- ment to rust diseases and are an important component in protecting wheat crops from these fungal pathogens. These genes provide protection in both bread wheat and durum wheat. Here, we have mapped APR to wheat stripe rust, caused by the fungal pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, in a cross between durum cultivars Stewart and Bansi. Two resistance QTLs derived from the Stewart parent were identifed in multi-generational feld trials. One QTL is located on chromosome 1BL and maps to the previously identifed Yr29/Lr46/Sr58/Pm39 multi-pathogen APR locus. The second locus, located on chromosome 3BL, maps near the recently described bread wheat APR gene, Yr80. Fine mapping in durum and bread wheat families shows that the durum 3BL locus and Yr80 are closely located, with the later APR gene reduced to 15 candidate genes present in the Chinese Spring genome sequence. Distorted segregation of the durum 3BL region was observed with the Stewart locus preferentially transmitted through pollen when compared with the equivalent Bansi region. Introduction Plant diseases remain a continued constraint to agricultural crop production. Currently, one of the most signifcant dis- ease threats to both bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and durum wheat (T. turgidum spp. durum (Desf) Husn.) is stripe rust caused by the fungal pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, Eriks. and Henn. (Pst). More aggressive strains of Pst with adaptation to high temperature have emerged and expanded into new environments threatening global wheat production (Milus et al. 2009). Genetic resistance remains the most economically and environmentally sustainable approach for controlling wheat stripe rust. Two types of Pst resistance mechanisms have been identifed in wheat, all stage resistance (ASR) and adult plant resistance (APR). More than 80 stripe rust resistance genes have been catalogued in bread and durum wheats (Gessese et al. 2019). Recently, several ASR genes (Yr5, Yr7, YrSp) have been cloned (Marchal et al. 2018) that encode nucleotide-binding site leucine-rich repeat proteins (NLR), a ubiquitous class of plant disease resistance proteins found in all plant species and which provide resistance to a diverse range of microbial pathogens and insect parasites. NLR genes function by the direct or indirect recogni- tion of pathogen molecules (efectors) that are introduced into plant cells to promote pathogenesis. As yet no efec- tor molecules that are recognised by a cognate cloned NLR gene have been identifed in the Pst-wheat pathosystem, but similar NLR/efector gene pairs have recently been identifed in the closely related wheat stem rust pathosystem caused Communicated by Hermann Buerstmayr. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-020-03654-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Michael Aylife Michael.aylife@csiro.au 1 CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Box 1700, Clunies Ross Street, Canberra, ACT, Australia 2 School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney Plant Breeding Institute, 107 Cobbitty Road, Cobbitty, NSW 2570, Australia 3 Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, 211 Huimin Road, Wenjiang, Chengdu 611130, Sichuan, China