Wheat stem rust at important flag leaf stage. Photo by Robert Park

A significant breakthrough in combatting wheat stem rust disease caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici was recently achieved through the combined work of an international collaborative team, showing the power of cooperative research approaches.

The emergence of the Ug99 race of stem rust in Africa and the Middle East together with the appearance of new strains in Europe catalyzed a major effort to identify new sources of stem rust resistance and breed these genes into wheat lines. However, the continued emergence of stem rust variants that overcome new resistance genes, now demands an increased focus on pathogen evolution and virulence mechanisms.

Numerous stem rust resistance (Sr) genes are known and in recent years several of these have been cloned and used to develop so-called ‘perfect’ markers to allow more rapid and accurate breeding. These genes typically encode immune receptors that recognize specific protein components of the fungal pathogen to trigger resistance. However, the molecules recognized by these Sr genes have been unknown until now, hampering our understanding of how new strains of P. graminis f. sp. tritici evolve to escape plant recognition.