Engineering crop resistance by manipulating disease susceptibility genes

Abstract

Wheat production is often affected by different types of rust diseases, in which stripe rust is triggered by a fungal pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), and remains the biggest challenge to the plant breeders and farmer community. Nevertheless, pathogens exploit its effector proteins for altering the susceptibility (S) genes in the host plant, rendering host defense inactivated. Thus, altering the S genes by employing precise genome editing tools provides a great opportunity to develop broad-spectrum and durable resistant crops. Recently, Wang et. al. 2022 have demonstrated the TaPsIPK1 as an ideal S gene target to confer stripe rust resistance in wheat, providing an opportunity to deliver broad spectrum rust-resistant crop varieties.