Kansas State University

MANHATTAN -- The world's food supply got a little more plentiful thanks to a scientific breakthrough.

Eduard 1xbet online sports betting , associate professor of plant pathology at Kansas State University, and his colleague, Jorge Dubcovsky from the University of California-Davis, led a research project that identified a gene that gives 1xbet online sports betting plants resistance to one of the most deadly races of the 1xbet online sports betting stem rust pathogen -- called Ug99 -- that was first discovered in Uganda in 1999. The discovery may help scientists develop new 1xbet online sports betting varieties and strategies that protect the world's food crops against the 1xbet online sports betting stem rust pathogen that is spreading from Africa to the breadbaskets of Asia and can cause significant crop losses.

Other Kansas State University researchers include Harold Trick, professor of plant pathology; Andres Salcedo, doctoral candidate in genetics; and Cyrille Saintenac, a postdoctoral research associate currently working at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in France. The project was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Borlaug Global 1xbet online sports betting Initiative.

The team's study, "Identification of 1xbet online sports betting Gene Sr35 that Confers Resistance to Ug99 Stem Rust Race Group," appears in the journal Science.

It identifies the stem rust resistance 1xbet online sports betting named Sr35, and appears alongside a study from an Australian group that identifies another effective resistance 1xbet online sports betting called Sr33.

"This 1xbet online sports betting , Sr35, functions as a key component of plants' immune system," Akhunov said. "It recognizes the invading pathogen and triggers a response in the plant to fight the disease."

1xbet online sports betting stem rust is caused by a fungal pathogen. According to Akhunov, since the 1950s 1xbet online sports betting breeders have been able to develop 1xbet online sports betting varieties that are largely resistant to this pathogen. However, the emergence of strain Ug99 in Uganda in 1999 devastated crops and has spread to Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen, though has yet to reach the U.S.

"Until that point, 1xbet online sports betting breeders had two or three genes that were so efficient against stem rust for decades that this disease wasn't the biggest concern," Akhunov said. "However, the discovery of the Ug99 race of pathogen showed that changes in the virulence of existing pathogen races can become a huge problem."

As a first line of defense, 1xbet online sports betting breeders and researchers began looking for resistance genes among those that had already been discovered in the existing germplasm repositories, he said.

"The Sr35 gene was one of those genes that was discovered in einkorn 1xbet online sports betting grown in Turkey," Akhunov said. "Until now, however, we did not know what kind of gene confers resistance to Ug99 in this 1xbet online sports betting accession."

To identify the resistance gene Sr35, the team turned to einkorn 1xbet online sports betting that is known to be resistant to the Ug99 fungal strain. Einkorn 1xbet online sports betting has limited economic value and is cultivated in small areas of the Mediterranean region. It has been replaced by higher yielding pasta and bread 1xbet online sports betting varieties.

Researchers spent nearly four years trying to identify the location of the Sr35 gene in the 1xbet online sports betting genome, which contains nearly two times more genetic information than the human genome.

Once the researchers narrowed the list of candidate genes, they used two complimentary approaches to find the Sr35 gene. First, they chemically mutagenized the resistant accession of 1xbet online sports betting to identify plants that become susceptible to the stem rust pathogen.

"It was a matter of knocking out each candidate 1xbet online sports betting until we found the one that made a plant susceptible," Akhunov said. "It was a tedious process and took a lot of time, but it was worth the effort."

Next, researchers isolated the candidate 1xbet online sports betting and used biotechnical approaches to develop transgenic plants that carried the Sr35 1xbet online sports betting and showed resistance to the Ug99 race of stem rust.

Now that the resistance gene has been found, Akhunov and colleagues are looking at what proteins are transferred by the fungus into the 1xbet online sports betting plants and recognized by the protein encoded by the Sr35 gene. This will help researchers to better understand the molecular mechanisms behind infection and develop new approaches for controlling this devastating pathogen.