Battling Stem Rust with Cloned Resistance Genes: NB-LRRs in the Haystack

Stem rust has been a devastating disease of wheat since ancient times. The new super-virulent stem rust strain Ug99 can overcome ~80% of commercial wheat cultivars, highlighting the urgent need for new sources of resistance. Our strategy is to isolate multiple novel stem rust resistance (Sr) genes and deploy them in combination at a single transgene locus in wheat. We will report on our progress to combine exome capture and NextGen sequencing on genetically structured populations to speed up the cloning of Sr genes from diploid relatives of wheat and wheat alien introgression lines.