A transmembrane protein confers the Yr26/Yr24/YrCH42/YrG22-mediated stripe rust resistance in wheat
- Shengjie Liu
- Keqing Mu
- Shuqing Yang
- Jianhui Wu
- Mingjie Xiang
- Xiangrui Cheng
- Xiaoting Wang
- Yibo Zhang
- Ying Zhao
- Jiangna Han
- Shuo Huang
- Haitao Dong
- Jiwen Zhao
- Fengping Yuan
- Raghvendra Sharma
- Michael Norman
- Peidu Chen
- Aizhong Cao
- Weijun Zheng
- Chunlian Li
- Jaroslav Doležel
- Kateřina HolušováJ
- John Rathjen
- Evans Lagudah
- Xiaojie Wang
- Zhensheng Kang
- Sambasivam Periyannan
- Dejun Han
- Qingdong Zeng
2026-08-24
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.