Pengtao Ma
Huagang He
Yi Wang
Yunfeng Xu
Dale Zhang5
Cheng Liu- 1School of Life Sciences, Yantai University, Yantai, China
- 2School of Life Sciences, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
- 3Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China
- 4Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, United States
- 5State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, College of Agriculture, Henan University, Kaifeng, China
- 6Crop Research Institute, Shandong Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Jinan, China
Editorial on the Research Topic
Inheritance and Improvement of Disease Resistance or Stress Tolerance for Triticeae Crops
Introduction
Triticeae crops are the most important grain crops worldwide. However, they are consistently challenged by biotic and/or abiotic stresses, including pathogens, pests, salt, drought, low and high temperature and heavy metals (Li H. et al., 2019). To combat these threats, the Triticeae crops have naturally evolved complex response system to these challenges during their evolutionary history (Langridge and Reynolds, 2021; Tosa 2021). Artificial mutation in the modern period also increased the genetic variation available to cope with these challenges (Krasileva et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2020). In Triticeae breeding history, some excellent variations have been selected and used to improve agronomic performance (Li W. et al., 2019). With the development of modern biotechnology and genome/transcriptome sequencing technology, it is expected that many more novel variations will emerge rapidly, and how to identify and use them efficiently in breeding is an important present and future topic. In this topic, recent advances in disease resistance or stress tolerance studies for Triticeae crops are presented, in 10 publications including one review and nine research articles, contributed by 72 authors.
Disease Resistance in Triticeae Crops
Powdery mildew is a devastating wheat disease that affect yield and quality. One study identified a broad spectrum powdery mildew resistance gene PmH4568 in a Chinese wheat cultivar Heng 4,568, which can be used in resistance breeding (Gao et al.). Septoria nodorum blotch (SNB) is a necrotrophic disease of wheat. Francki et al. evaluated the SNB resistance in the glumes of wheat and analyzed its genetic relationship with foliar disease response, and found that glume and foliar response to SNB in wheat is regulated by multiple environment-specific loci which function independently. Wheat root and stem diseases related to soil change have become severe threats to global wheat production. Su et al. summarized the genetics of resistance to three related diseases, including common root rot, fusarium crown rot and sharp eyespot.
Abiotic Stresses in Triticeae Crops
Soil salinization is one of the major abiotic stresses that affect the wheat yield and quality. He et al. identified eight salt-tolerance-related miRNAs and their corresponding 11 target mRNAs that are useful to develop genetically improved salt-tolerant wheat varieties. Tong et al. screened salt-tolerant Thinopyrum ponticum under two coastal region salinity stress levels which can be used as excellent germplasm to develop salt-tolerant cultivars. In wheat drought stress, chlorophyll content of the flag leaf is an important trait for drought tolerance. Yang et al. identified several genetic loci affecting flag leaf chlorophyll under different water regimes. In wheat, autophagy is involved in the regulation of variousbiotic and abiotic stresses. Li et al. analyzed the programmed degradation of pericarp cells in wheat grains depends on autophagy.
Evolution of Gene Families Related to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses in Triticeae Crops
Nucleotide binding site (NBS)-leucinerich repeat (LRR) receptor (NBS-LRR, also termed as NLR) is a large and one of the most important gene family against wheat disease. Li et al. and Qian et al. identifiedand characterized the NBS-LRR genes in genome of barely and Secale cereale, respectively, which are both important material for the molecular breeding of other Triticeae crops. Plant heat shock factor (HSF) is another important gene family against external biotic and abiotic stresses. Li et al. compared the HSF genes from Secale cereale and its Triticeae relatives, and the results revealed ancient and recent gene expansions of this gene family.
Author Contributions
PM, HH, YW, YX, DZ, and CL organized the Research Topic as guest editors and supervised the reviewing of the submitted manuscripts. PM wrote the draft of the the Editorial paper and HH, YW, YX, DZ, and CL revised and approved the submitted version.
Funding
This work was supported financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32072053) and Taishan Scholars Project (tsqn201812123).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s Note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Acknowledgments
We are greatly appreciated for the contributions from all the authors and reviewers as well as the support of the editorial office of Frontiers in Genetics.
References
Chen, L., Zhao, J., Song, J., and Jameson, P. E. (2020). Cytokinin Dehydrogenase: a Genetic Target for Yield Improvement in Wheat. Plant Biotechnol. J. 18, 614–630. doi:10.1111/pbi.13305
Krasileva, K. V., Vasquez-Gross, H. A., Howell, T., Bailey, P., Paraiso, F., Clissold, L., et al. (2017). Uncovering Hidden Variation in Polyploid Wheat. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 114, E913–E921. doi:10.1073/pnas.1619268114
Langridge, P., and Reynolds, M. (2021). Breeding for Drought and Heat Tolerance in Wheat. Theor. Appl. Genet. 134, 1753–1769. doi:10.1007/s00122-021-03795-1
Li, H., Murray, T. D., McIntosh, R. A., and Zhou, Y. (2019a). Breeding New Cultivars for Sustainable Wheat Production. Crop J. 7, 715–717. doi:10.1016/j.cj.2019.11.001
Li, W., Zhang, Q., Wang, S., Langham, M. A., Singh, D., Bowden, R. L., et al. (2019b). Development and Characterization of Wheat-Sea Wheatgrass (Thinopyrum Junceiforme) Amphiploids for Biotic Stress Resistance and Abiotic Stress Tolerance. Theor. Appl. Genet. 132, 163–175. doi:10.1007/s00122-018-3205-4
Keywords: Triticeae crops, stress tolerance, disease resistance, genetic improvement, molecular mechanism editorial on the research topic
Citation: Ma P, He H, Wang Y, Xu Y, Zhang D and Liu C (2022) Editorial: Inheritance and Improvement of Disease Resistance or Stress Tolerance for Triticeae Crops. Front. Genet. 13:877926. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.877926
Received: 17 February 2022; Accepted: 22 February 2022;
Published: 10 March 2022.
Edited and reviewed by:
Andrew H. Paterson, University of Georgia, United StatesCopyright © 2022 Ma, He, Wang, Xu, Zhang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Cheng Liu, bGNoNjY4ODQwN0AxNjMuY29t