NGS tech revealed fungal resistance in wheat

On April 9, 2020, a research article entitled “Horizontal gene transfer of Fhb7 from fungus underlies Fusarium head blight resistance in wheat” was published on “Science”. In this work, Novogene, a bioinformatics institute, supports services on genome assembly, genome structure annotation and evolutionary analysis.

Fusarium. graminearum is the prominent pathogen of wheat FHB in China, USA, Canada, Europe and many other countries, which threat for global wheat production and food safety. Thinopyrum elongatum has been used into wheat for resistance breeding because of its potential of FHB resistance and strong growth ability. Fhb7 plays a main role in FHB resistance in Th. Elongatum, However, the E reference genome of Th. Elongatum is not available and molecular identity and mechanisms of FHB resistance remains equivocal. This study reports the assembly of a reference genome for Th.elongatum and describe cloning and biomolecular characterization of Fhb7. Fhb7 encodes a glutathione S-transferase (GST) and confers broad resistance to Fusarium species by detoxifying trichothecenes via de-epoxidation. Fhb7 GST homologs are absent in plants, and the evidence supports Th. elongatum has gained Fhb7 via horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from an endophytic Epichloë species. Fhb7 introgressions in wheat confers resistance to both FHB and crown rot in diverse wheat backgrounds without yield penalty, providing a solution for Fusarium resistance breeding.

Novogene is a leading provider of genomic services and solutions with cutting-edge NGS and bioinformatical expertise, and more advanced sequencing capacity in the world. Novogene utilizes scientific excellence, a commitment to customer service and unsurpassed data quality to help our clients realize their research goals. Novogene delivers unsurpassed data quality to support our customers’ research goals. We are a world-leader in NGS services, with thousands of employees and multiple locations across the globe. Novogene has strong scientific expertise and experience with 32 NGS-related patents, as well as over 580 research papers with total impact factor at more than 4090, including publications in first tiers journals such as Cell, Nature and Science.