PhD Oral Defense: Dissection and functional characterization of wheat QTL-Fhb5 based on forward and reverse genetics approach
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PhD Oral Defense of Shivappa Hukkeri, Department of Plant Science
Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a devastating and dreadful disease of wheat (Triticum aestivum L), which not only reduces the yield but also, affects the grain quality by contaminating with health hazardous mycotoxins. Resistance to FHB in wheat is quantitative in nature, and have led to the identification of several quantitative trait loci (QTL), indicating the additive effects of several genes in governing the resistance. Though, more than hundred QTL are identified in wheat conferring FHB resistance, genetic controls underlying them are still unknown.Ìý The QTL-Fhb5 is one of the major FHB resistant QTL conferring high spikelet resistance and has been consistently mapped using different mapping populations in various environments. However, the gene(s) underlying QTL-Fhb5 conferring resistance and the resistance mechanisms are not elucidated. In our study, we made an attempt to dissect QTL-Fhb5 and functionally characterize using integrated metabolo-genomics approach to identify the putative candidate gene(s) and the plausible mechanisms of resistance.