Genetics for low correlation between Fusarium head blight disease and deoxynivalenol (DON) content in a bread wheat mapping population

Xinyao He,Ravi P Singh,Pawan K Singh,Susanne Dreisigacker

doi:10.1007/s00122-019-03362-9

Xinyao He, Ravi P Singh + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-019-03362-9

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Abstract

Key messageTwo QTL with major effects on DON content reduction were identified on chromosomes 3BL and 3DL, with the former showing minor and the latter showing no effects on FHB resistance.Deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination in food and feed is a major concern regarding Fusarium head blight (FHB) infection in wheat. However, relatively less attention has been paid on DON compared to FHB. In this study, a FHB-susceptible cultivar ‘NASMA’ was hybridized with a FHB-resistant CIMMYT breeding line ‘IAS20*5/H567.71’ to generate 197 recombinant inbred lines. The population was phenotyped for FHB and associated traits including DON accumulation in spray-inoculated field experiments at CIMMYT-Mexico across four years. Genotyping was performed by using the Illumina Infinium 15 K Beadchip and SSR markers. QTL mapping results indicated that the field FHB resistance was mainly controlled by QTL at Rht-D1 and Vrn-A1, along with a few minor QTL. For DON content, two major QTL were identified: the first located on chromosome 3BL (R2 of 16–24%), showing minor effects on FHB, and the second was on chromosome 3DL (R2 of 10–15%), exhibiting no effect on FHB resistance. It is likely that both DON QTL are new based on comparison with previous studies. This study indicates that resistance to DON accumulation and FHB disease could involve different genes, and the utilization of the two DON QTL in breeding could be helpful in further reducing DON contamination in food and feed.

Highlights

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a fungal disease with global importance
Regarding the two traits related to grain filling, grain filling period (GFP) did not show significant correlation with FHB traits, whereas grain filling rate (GFR) showed only marginally negative correlation with FHB index, but not with Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK) nor DON (Table 3)
North-western China is of dry climate and FHB epidemic has been rare, but a recent survey indicated that 82.9% of wheat samples harvested in the region were contaminated with DON at an average concentration of 0.5 mg kg−1, and 10% of the contaminated samples showed DON content higher than the Chinese threshold for DON (1.0 mg kg−1) (Zhao et al 2018b)

Summary

Introduction

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a fungal disease with global importance. Prior to 1990s, it was mainly found in East Asia, Europe and the Southern Cone of South America. Since 1990s, its epidemics has been increasing in the USA and Canada, due to adoption of conservation agricultural practices, maize-wheat rotation and climate change (McMullen et al 2012). In China, the disease has been spreading northward since the last two decades towards. Several FHB resistance mechanisms have been identified in wheat, of which type II resistance has been regarded as the most effective and stably inherited, and its measurement is straightforward with FHB severity scored after point inoculation (Bai and Shaner 2004). Type I resistance for initial infection, type III resistance for DON accumulation and type IV resistance for kernel infection are generally less investigated compared to type II resistance (Liu et al 2009),

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