Genetic resistance is the most economic and environmentally sustainable approach for crop disease protection. Disease resistance (R) genes from wild relatives are a valuable resource for breeding resistant crops. However, introgression of R genes into crops is a lengthy process often associated with co-integration of deleterious linked genes and pathogens can rapidly evolve to overcome R genes when deployed singly. Introducing multiple cloned R genes into crops as a stack would avoid linkage drag and delay emergence of resistance-breaking pathogen races. However, current R gene cloning methods require segregating or mutant progenies, which are difficult to generate for many wild relatives due to poor agronomic traits. We exploited natural pan-genome variation in a wild diploid wheat by combining association genetics with R gene enrichment sequencing (AgRenSeq) to clone four stem rust resistance genes in <6 months. RenSeq combined with diversity panels is therefore a major advance in isolating R genes for engineering broad-spectrum resistance in crops.

Resistance gene discovery and cloning by sequence capture and association genetics