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ARS Home » Midwest Area » West Lafayette, Indiana » Crop Production and Pest Control Research » Research » Research Project #432582

Research Project: Hessian Fly-Resistance in Wheat

Location: Crop Production and Pest Control Research

Project Number: 5020-22000-019-001-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Jul 1, 2017
End Date: Jun 30, 2022

Objective:
1) Utilize genes and promoters contributing to resistance against Hessian fly attack, from wheat and non-wheat sources, to generate transgenic wheat with increased resistance and to test durability. 2) Study structure/motifs of promoters that are responsive to Hessian fly attack. 3) Produce inbred seed for molecular experiments and segregating populations for mapping of new resistance genes. 4) Perform plant resistance screens.

Approach:
Previously characterized gene promoters that are induced specifically by Hessian fly attack will be used to drive transgenes for resistance that encodes antifeedant or insecticidal genes like those that have been identified in wheat and other species. This new type of resistance will be paired with native gene resistance to test whether increased durability can be achieved in this type of resistance pyramid. Promoters from several Hessian fly-responsive wheat genes have been cloned and annotated. Additional sequences with similar motifs will be mined from the wheat genome sequence at NCBI. Expression studies and motif-modification experiments will be conducted to better understand promoter sequences that are necessary for a gene to be induced by Hessian fly infestation. In addition to seed increases for several nearly isogenic wheat lines used commonly for our molecular genetics and gene expression studies, mapping populations will be constructed, as needed, utilizing several wheat lines with newly identified resistance genes. Resistance screens will be done on new germplasm to identify yet undiscovered sources of resistance. In addition, these screens will yield the phenotypes for use with high-throughput genotyping to identify molecular markers tightly linked to resistance genes, making them accessible for introgression into elite lines and cultivars.