Genome-wide association mapping for the identification of stripe rust resistance loci in US hard winter wheat

The GWAS and testing with Yr gene linked markers identified 109 loci including 40 novel loci for all-stage and adult plant stage resistance to stripe rust in 459 US contemporary hard winter wheat genotypes. Stripe rust is a destructive wheat disease, caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst). To identify sources of stripe rust resistance in US contemporary hard winter wheat, a panel of 459 Great Plains wheat genotypes was evaluated at the seedling stage against five US Pst races and at the adult plant stage in field environments in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Washington. The results showed that 7-14% of the genotypes were resistant to Pst races at the seedling stage, whereas 32-78% of genotypes were resistant at the adult plant stage across field environments, indicating the presence of adult plant resistance. Sixteen genotypes displayed a broad spectrum of resistance to all five Pst races and across all field environments. The panel was further genotyped using 9858 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) generated from multiplex restriction amplicon sequencing (MRASeq) and the functional DNA markers linked to the known stripe rust resistance (Yr) genes Yr5, Yr15, Yr17, Yr18, Yr29, Yr36, Yr40, Yr46, and QYr.tamu-2B. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed using genotypic and phenotypic data, which identified 110 SNPs and the functional markers linked to Yr15 and Yr17 to be significantly associated with stripe rust response. In addition, Yr5, Yr15, Yr17, Yr18, Yr29, and QYr.tamu-2B were detected by their functional DNA markers in the panel. This study identified 40 novel loci associated with stripe rust resistance in genomic regions not previously characterized by known Yr genes. These findings offer significant opportunities to diversify and enhance stripe rust resistance in hard winter wheat.