Soybean rust resistance gene was cloned in Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

A few days ago, the good news came from the Oil Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. After nearly 30 years of efforts, the researchers of the institute have cloned the soybean rust resistance gene from soybeans for the first time in the world, and solved the worldwide problem of the lack of soybean rust resistance gene. At present, the related intellectual property rights of the gene have applied for multinational invention patents, and the relevant results have been published in the internationally renowned journal "Nature Communications".

According to the researchers, soybean rust is the world's most important disease of soybean, soybean rust prevention has been a worldwide problem, cloning soybean rust gene is an effective way to solve soybean rust disease. In response to the bottleneck of this major industry development, the researchers of the Institute have been working for many years, screening the germplasm immune to rust bacteria from more than 13,000 soybean resource materials, and finally achieving a breakthrough of "0 to 1" by formulating the most stringent rust resistance identification and classification method, constructing ultra-large scale F2 population fine localization, and improving the genetic transformation process of soybeans. The broad-spectrum and durable soybean rust resistance gene Rpp6907 was cloned from soybean for the first time in the world, which provided valuable gene resources for soybean rust resistance breeding.

In this study, the researchers cloned the Phakopsora resistance gene Rpp6907-7 in SX6907. In addition, the researchers identified its corresponding sensing protein, NLR Rpp6907-4. The results suggest that Rpp6907-7 and Rpp6907-4 are important components of NRL-mediated immunity and represent an atypical pair of NLR. Through genetic analysis, the researchers determined that the resistance conferred by Rpp6907-7 is independent of Rpp6907-4, and that in the absence of a recognized effector protein, Rpp6907-4 acts as a negative regulator of Rpp6907-7 signaling.

South America is one of the world's main areas of soybean rust disease, soybean planting area of more than 1 billion mu, the annual cost of rust prevention and control of more than 2 billion US dollars. At present, about 60% of China's soybean imports come from South America, which is highly dependent on imports and the use of a large number of pesticides, affecting national food security and people's health. Digging out the soybean rust resistance gene with China's independent intellectual property rights can implant the "Chinese core" for South American soybeans, firmly grasp the initiative of intellectual property rights, which can not only guarantee national food security from the source, but also protect people's health by reducing the use of pesticides.

The above research was led by the Southern Soybean Genetics and Breeding Innovation team of the Oil and Gas Research Institute, and Syngenta Group participated in this work, which was funded by the National Soybean Industry Technology System and the Innovation project of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences