A model wheat cultivar for transformation to improve resistance to Fusarium head blight

Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused primarily by Fusarium graminearum, is a major disease problem in wheat (Triticum aestivum). Genetic engineering holds significant potential to enhance FHB resistance in wheat. Due to the requirement of screening for FHB resistance on flowers at anthesis, the number of screens carried out in a year is limited. Our objective was to evaluate the feasibility of using the rapid-maturing dwarf wheat cultivar Apogee as an alternative genotype for transgenic FHB resistance research. Our transformation efficiency (number of transgenic plants/number of embryos) for Apogee was 1.33%. Apogee was also found to exhibit high FHB susceptibility and reached anthesis within 4 weeks. Interestingly, microsatellite marker haplotype analysis of the chromosome 3BS FHB resistant quantitative trait locus (QTL) region indicated that this region maybe deleted in Apogee. Our results indicate that Apogee is particularly well suited for accelerating transgenic FHB resistance research and transgenic wheat research in general.