A transmembrane protein confers the Yr26/Yr24/YrCH42/YrG22-mediated stripe rust resistance in wheat
Abstract Stripe or yellow rust (YR), caused by Puccinia striiformis Westend. f. sp. tritici ( Pst ), is a devastating fungal disease of wheat. Here, we report the map-based cloning of Yr26 (synonyms: Yr24 , YrCH42 , and YrG22 ), a major stripe rust resistance gene, and its validation by gene silencing, mutation analysis and transgenic complementation. Yr26 , which firstly arises in emmer wheat and recently has introgressed into bread wheat, is a newly evolved gene encoding a transmembrane protein. AlphaFold v3.0 predictes a C-terminal four-helical bundle domain that is critical for triggering Ca 2+ -dependent cell death, a hallmark of the hypersensitive response. The cloning of Yr26 offers not only a genetic resource for pyramiding stripe rust resistance genes in wheat breeding but also an opportunity to study host–pathogen co-evolution.
Authors
- Mingjie Xiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3787-4801)
- Jianhui Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8154-1199)
- Qingdong Zeng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-2340)
- John P. Rathjen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4073-8088)
- Peidu Chen
- Fengping Yuan
- Dejun Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4885-7359)
- Weijun Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2416-8110)
- Xiangrui Cheng
- Chunlian Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5520-1112)
- Jaroslav Doležel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6263-0492)
- Sambasivam Periyannan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5421-2872)
- Zhensheng Kang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5575-0122)
- Evans Lagudah (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6234-1789)
- Keqing Mu
- Michael Norman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9838-883X)
- R. K. Sharma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7612-6932)
- Xiaojie Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9968-0373)
- Yibo Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3502-9933)
- Xiaoting Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5050-2397)
- Jiwen Zhao
- Shuo Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9116-1242)
- Haitao Dong
- Aizhong Cao
- Shuqing Yang
- Jiangna Han
- Shengjie Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4869-7726)
- Ying Zhao
- Kateřina HolušováJ
Institutions
- Australian National University (AU)
- Nanjing Agricultural University (CN)
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (AU)
- University of Southern Queensland (AU)
- North West Agriculture and Forestry University (CN)
- Agriculture and Food (AU)
- Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences (CN)
- Ministry of Agriculture (CZ)
- Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Experimental Botany (CZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-08-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76091-5
- Primary Topic
- Wheat and Barley Genetics and Pathology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00