Wheat rusts, including stripe, leaf, and stem rusts, are severe wheat diseases and cause huge yield loss in China annually. Benefiting from utilizing the genetic resistance wheat varieties, wheat stem rust has been effectively controlled since the 1970s; however, the wheat stripe and leaf rusts are still threating the wheat production in China due to lack of effective agricultural regulations. This review summarizes the research advances on wheat rust physiology, epidemiology, and fungicide resistance in China. In addition, the corresponding field management strategies for the integrated control of rust diseases are also discussed.

Background: Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici is a fungal pathogen causing stripe rust, one of the most important wheat diseases worldwide. The fungus is strictly biotrophic and thus, completely dependent on living host cells for its reproduction, which makes it difficult to study genes of the pathogen. In spite of its economic importance, little is known about the molecular basis of compatible interaction between the pathogen and wheat host. In this study, we identified wheat and P. striiformis genes associated with the infection process by conducting a large-scale transcriptomic analysis using cDNA-AFLP. Results: Of the total 54,912 transcript derived fragments (TDFs) obtained using cDNA-AFLP with 64 primer pairs, 2,306 (4.2%) displayed altered expression patterns after inoculation, of which 966 showed up-regulated and 1,340 down-regulated. 186 TDFs produced reliable sequences after sequencing of 208 TDFs selected, of which 74 (40%) had known functions through BLAST searching the GenBank database. Majority of the latter group had predicted gene products involved in energy (13%), signal transduction (5.4%), disease/defence (5.9%) and metabolism (5% of the sequenced TDFs). BLAST searching of the wheat stem rust fungus genome database identified 18 TDFs possibly from the stripe rust pathogen, of which 9 were validated of the pathogen origin using PCR-based assays followed by sequencing confirmation. Of the 186 reliable TDFs, 29 homologous to genes known to play a role in disease/defense, signal transduction or uncharacterized genes were further selected for validation of cDNA-AFLP expression patterns using qRT-PCR analyses. Results confirmed the altered expression patterns of 28 (96.5%) genes revealed by the cDNA-AFLP technique. Conclusion: The results show that cDNA-AFLP is a reliable technique for studying expression patterns of genes involved in the wheat-stripe rust interactions. Genes involved in compatible interactions between wheat and the stripe rust pathogen were identified and their expression patterns were determined. The present study should be helpful in elucidating the molecular basis of the infection process, and identifying genes that can be targeted for inhibiting the growth and reproduction of the pathogen. Moreover, this study can also be used to elucidate the defence responses of the genes that were of plant origin.

The stripe rust pathogen Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici frequently causes significant yield losses in China, due to rapid development of new races that overcome resistance in wheat cultivars. Indirect evidence suggests that sexual reproduction occurs in the P. striiformis f. sp. tritici population in China but direct evidence was still lacking. In this study, a large-scale survey of barberry (Berberis spp.) was conducted in Gansu, Shaanxi, Tibet, and Xinjiang provinces in western China. In total, 9,297 single-aecial (SA) samples were used to inoculate a susceptible wheat cultivar to identify samples of P. striiformis f. sp. tritici. Sixteen of the SA samples were identified as P. striiformis f. sp. tritici. When tested on the wheat differentials for identifying P. striiformis f. sp. tritici races, 15 of the 16 SA samples had different virulence patterns, indicating that they were sexually produced through barberry. From the 16 SA samples, 118 single-uredinium (SU) isolates were obtained, from which 88 virulence patterns were identified when tested on 17 Yr single-gene lines. The virulence patterns had relatively narrow virulence spectra, ranging from 0 to 9, with a mean of four virulences per SU isolates. Of the 17 Yr genes, no virulences were detected for Yr5, Yr10, and Yr15; virulences to YrTr1, Yr24, and Yr27 were extremely low (<3%); those to YrSP, Yr9, Yr28, and Yr2 were low (13.6 to 28.0%); those to Yr7, Yr17, Yr8, and YrExp2 were moderate (33.1 to 48.3%); and those to Yr6, Yr44, and Yr25 were high (52.5 to 72.9%). This study provides direct evidence that natural sexual reproduction occurs in the P. striiformis f. sp. tritici population in China, but the frequency appears to be very low. The sexual reproduction on alternate host plants can generate a great virulence diversity, which may have contributed to the high variation in the P. striiformis f. sp. tritici population in China.

Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici (Pst) is the causal agent of stripe (yellow) rust on wheat. It seriously threatens wheat production worldwide. The obligate biotrophic fungus is highly capable of producing new virulent races that can overcome resistance. Studying the inheritance of Pst virulence using the classical genetic approach was not possible until the recent discovery of its sexual stage on barberry plants. In the present study, 127 progeny isolates were obtained by selfing a representative Chinese Yellow Rust (CYR) race, CYR32, on Berberis aggregate. The parental isolate and progeny isolates were characterized by testing them on 25 wheat lines with different Yr genes for resistance and 10 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The 127 progeny isolates were classified into 27 virulence phenotypes (VPs), and 65 multi-locus genotypes (MLGs). All progeny isolates and the parental isolate were avirulent to Yr5, Yr8, Yr10, Yr15, Yr24, Yr26, Yr32, and YrTr1; but virulent to Yr1, Yr2, Yr3, Yr4, Yr25, Yr44, and Yr76. The VPs of the parental isolate to nine Yr genes (Yr6, Yr7, Yr9, Yr17, Yr27, Yr28, Yr43, YrA, and YrExp2) and the avirulence phenotype to YrSP were found to be heterozygous. Based on the segregation of the virulence/avirulence phenotypes, we found that the VPs to Yr7, Yr28, Yr43, and YrExp2 were controlled by a dominant gene; those to Yr6, Yr9, and YrA (Yr73, Yr74) by two dominant genes; those to Yr17 and Yr27 by one dominant and one recessive gene; and the avirulence phenotype to YrSP by two complementary dominant genes. Molecular mapping revealed the linkage of 10 virulence/avirulence genes. Comparison of the inheritance modes of the virulence/avirulence genes in this study with previous studies indicated complex interactions between virulence genes in the pathogen and resistance genes in wheat lines. The results are useful for understanding the plant-pathogen interactions and developing wheat cultivars with effective and durable resistance.

Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, the causal agent of wheat stripe rust, frequently produces new races overcoming resistance in wheat cultivars. A recently identified race, V26 with virulence to Yr26 and many other stripe rust resistance genes, has a high potential to cause epidemics in China. In this study, teliospores from a single-urediniospore isolate of V26 (Pinglan 17-7) produced on the wheat line 92R137 (Yr26) were used to produce a sexual population through selfing by infecting Berberis shensiana plants under controlled conditions. One hundred and eighteen progeny isolates and the parental isolate were phenotyped for virulence/avirulence on 24 Yr gene lines of wheat. These progeny isolates were all avirulent to Yr5, Yr8, Yr15, and YrTr1 and virulent to Yr1, Yr2, Yr7, Yr9, Yr10, Yr17, Yr24, Yr25, Yr26, YrA, YrExp2, and YrV23, indicating that the parental isolate is homozygous avirulent or homozygous virulent at these loci. The progeny population segregated for avirulence to Yr6, Yr43, and YrSP at one locus (3 avirulent:1 virulent ratio); for virulence to Yr27 and Yr28 at one locus (3 virulent:1 avirulent); and for Yr4, Yr32, and Yr44 at two loci (15 virulent:1 avirulent). Among the eight segregating avirulence/virulence loci, association was found between virulence to Yr4 and Yr32, as well as between virulence to Yr6 and Yr43 based on χ² tests. From 82 genotypically different progeny isolates, 24 pathotypes and 82 multilocus genotypes were identified. The results show that a highly diverse population can be produced from a single isolate by selfing on a barberry plant and sexually produced population can be used to genetically characterize virulence of the stripe rust pathogen.

Background: Puccinia striiformisf. sp.triticiis an obligate biotrophic pathogen that causes leaf stripe rust on wheat. Although it is critical to understand molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis in the wheat stripe rust fungus for developing novel disease management strategies, little is known about its genome and gene functions due to difficulties in molecular studies with this important pathogen. To identify genes expressed during early infection stages, in this study we constructed a cDNA library with RNA isolated from urediniospores ofP. striiformisf. sp.triticigerminated for 10 h.Results: A total of 4798 ESTs were sequenced from the germinated urediniospore library and assembled into 315 contigs and 803 singletons. About 23.9% and 13.3% of the resulting 1118 unisequences were homologous to functionally characterized proteins and hypothetical proteins, respectively. The rest 62.8% unisequences had no significant homologs in GenBank. Several of these ESTs shared significant homology with known fungal pathogenicity or virulence factors, such as HESP767 of the flax rust andPMK1,GAS1, andGAS2of the rice blast fungus. We selected six ESTs (Ps28, Ps85, Ps87, Ps259, Ps261, and Ps159) for assaying their expression patterns during urediniospore germination and wheat infection by quantitative real-time PCR. All of them had the highest transcript level in germinated urediniospores and a much less transcript level in un-germinated urediniospores and infected wheat tissues (1–7 dpi). The transcript level of Ps159 increased at later infection stages (6–7 dpi). Our data indicated that these genes were highly expressed in germinated urediniospores and may play important roles in fungal-plant interactions during early infection stages in the wheat stripe rust fungus.Conclusion: Genes expressed in germinated urediniospores ofP. striiformisf. sp.triticiwere identified by EST analysis. Six of them were confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR assays to be highly expressed in germinated urediniospores.