Zuhuan Yang, Nannan Liu, Xiaoming Xie, Wenxin Wei, Y Bai, Junna Sun, Wei Pan, Jiatian Yang, Weidong Wang, Xiaodong Xie, Muhammad Saqlain, Houyang Kang, Baoyun Li, Zhaorong Hu, Jin‐Ying Gou, Weilong Guo, Susheng Song, Jun Ma, Tzion Fahima, Qixin Sun, Lina Qiu, Yinghui Li, Chaojie Xie
Powdery mildew is a devastating disease that affects wheat yield and quality globally. Here, we identify a powdery mildew resistance locus MlIW39 from wild emmer wheat through map-based cloning, mutagenesis, and stable genetic transformation. Unlike many other cloned Pm genes, the MlIW39-mediated resistance is conferred by the combined effect of two complementary nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat (NLR) genes, encoding a canonical coiled-coil (CC) type NLR protein (MlIW39-R1) and an atypical NLR protein (MlIW39-R2) with an unknown domain (CC-like), respectively. Overexpression of the NLR pair induces cell death in Nicotiana benthamiana, whereas MlIW39-R1 or MlIW39-R2 alone does not. The MlIW39-R1 and MlIW39-R2 proteins physically interact with each other. MlIW39-R1 and MlIW39-R2 likely originate independently and become neighborly located during evolution. Our findings shed light on the significance of NLR pairs in plant immunity and can facilitate wheat disease-resistance breeding using the developed MlIW39 introgression lines and functional marker. Powdery mildew is a devasting disease for both common wheat and durum wheat. Here, the authors report the powdery mildew resistance locus derived from wild emmer wheat is conferred by the combined effect of two complementary nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat genes.