A giant NLR gene confers broad-spectrum resistance to Phytophthora sojae in soybean

Weidong Wang,Jon Myrvold,Tomara J Fleury,Xutong Wang,Victor Llaca,Guohong Cai,Oswald Crasta,David Oneal,Maria Magdalena Van Dyk,Jeff Thompson,Chancelor B Clark,Andy Baumgarten,Liyang Chen,Ashley Hudson,Rajat Aggarwal,Jesse Munkvold,Joy Bolar,Kevin Fengler,Jianxin Ma

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26554-8

Abstract

Phytophthora root and stem rot caused by P. sojae is a destructive soybean soil-borne disease found worldwide. Discovery of genes conferring broad-spectrum resistance to the pathogen is a need to prevent the outbreak of the disease. Here, we show that soybean Rps11 is a 27.7-kb nucleotide-binding site-leucine-rich repeat (NBS-LRR or NLR) gene conferring broad-spectrum resistance to the pathogen. Rps11 is located in a genomic region harboring a cluster of large NLR genes of a single origin in soybean, and is derived from rounds of unequal recombination. Such events result in promoter fusion and LRR expansion that may contribute to the broad resistance spectrum. The NLR gene cluster exhibits drastic structural diversification among phylogenetically representative varieties, including gene copy number variation ranging from five to 23 copies, and absence of allelic copies of Rps11 in any of the non-Rps11-donor varieties examined, exemplifying innovative evolution of NLR genes and NLR gene clusters.

Highlights

Phytophthora root and stem rot caused by P. sojae is a destructive soybean soil-borne disease found worldwide
A 27.7 kb NLR gene is pinpointed as the candidate gene of resistance-to-P. sojae (Rps)[11] by gap-free sequence-based fine mapping and expression analyses, and its function is validated by stable transformation
Based on the responses of 209 F2:3 families derived from a cross between PI 594527 and a susceptible variety Williams to P. sojae race 1, Rps[11] was initially mapped to a 348 kb genomic region on chromosome 78, with 12 sequencing gaps of unknown sizes according to the Williams 82 reference genome assembly v2.0

Summary

Introduction

Phytophthora root and stem rot caused by P. sojae is a destructive soybean soil-borne disease found worldwide. A 27.7 kb NLR gene is pinpointed as the candidate gene of Rps[11] by gap-free sequence-based fine mapping and expression analyses, and its function is validated by stable transformation.

Results

Conclusion