Lei Yan, Jinfu Tian, Jingying Li, Shaoya Li, Chen Zhang,Yubing He, Lanqin Xia

Plant Biotechnology Journal; 2025; IF: 10.5

DOI: 10.1111/pbi.70318

Abstract

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating wheat disease. Fhb1 is the most widely applied genetic locus located on chromosome 3B for wheat FHB resistance. Sumai 3 (SM3), a Chinese wheat variety known as a Fhb1 carrier, has been applied for FHB resistance breeding worldwide. The Fhb1-mediated FHB resistance was reported to be conferred by either TaPFT or TaHRC. However, the roles of these two genes in Fhb1-mediated FHB resistance remain controversary for years. Here, we systemically evaluated the contributions of TaPFT, TaHRC or both of them to FHB resistance of SM3, and explored whether the three TaHRC homoeologs in three FHB-susceptible elite wheat varieties, may be harnessed to improve FHB resistance by generation of a series of mutant lines through CRISPR/Cas9. Our data suggest that Tahrc-3B, rather than TaPFT, confers FHB resistance in SM3. Furthermore, we reveal that TaHRC regulates FHB susceptibility in a highly complex manner. The improvement of FHB resistance by editing TaHRC homoeologs is strongly affected by both mutation types and varietal backgrounds. Notably, our work also demonstrates that knocking out the TaHRC-3D homoeolog has a potential to increase FHB resistance in elite commercial varieties, providing a new valuable target for rapidly fortifying FHB resistance in wheat through genome editing