AUTHOR=Ellis Jeffrey G. , Lagudah Evans S. , Spielmeyer Wolfgang , Dodds Peter N. TITLE=The past, present and future of breeding rust resistant wheat JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science VOLUME=5 YEAR=2014 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2014.00641 DOI=10.3389/fpls.2014.00641 ISSN=1664-462X ABSTRACT=
Two classes of genes are used for breeding rust resistant wheat. The first class, called R (for resistance) genes, are pathogen race specific in their action, effective at all plant growth stages and probably mostly encode immune receptors of the nucleotide binding leucine rich repeat (NB-LRR) class. The second class is called adult plant resistance genes (APR) because resistance is usually functional only in adult plants, and, in contrast to most R genes, the levels of resistance conferred by single APR genes are only partial and allow considerable disease development. Some but not all APR genes provide resistance to all isolates of a rust pathogen species and a subclass of these provides resistance to several fungal pathogen species. Initial indications are that APR genes encode a more heterogeneous range of proteins than R proteins. Two APR genes,