• Powdery mildew, a fungal disease caused by Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici (Bgt), has a serious impact on wheat production. Loss of resistance in cultivars prompts a continuing search for new sources of resistance.
• Wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides, WEW), the progenitor of both modern tetraploid and hexaploid wheats, harbors many powdery mildew resistance genes. We report here the positional cloning and functional characterization of Pm41, a powdery mildew resistance gene derived from WEW, which encodes a coiled‐coil, nucleotide‐binding site and leucine‐rich repeat protein (CNL). Mutagenesis and stable genetic transformation confirmed the function of Pm41 against Bgt infection in wheat.
• We demonstrated that Pm41 was present at a very low frequency (1.81%) only in southern WEW populations. It was absent in other WEW populations, domesticated emmer, durum, and common wheat, suggesting that the ancestral Pm41 was restricted to its place of origin and was not incorporated into domesticated wheat.
• Our findings emphasize the importance of conservation and exploitation of the primary WEW gene pool, as a valuable resource for discovery of resistance genes for improvement of modern wheat cultivars.

中文翻译：

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野生Emmer小麦中的CNL蛋白赋予白粉病抗性。

• 白粉病，一种由Blumeria graminis f。引起的真菌病。sp。Tritici（Bgt）对小麦的生产有严重影响。品种抗性的丧失促使人们不断寻找新的抗性来源。
• 野生二粒小麦（圆锥小麦亚种野生二粒，WEW），既现代四倍体和六倍体小麦的祖先，港湾众多白粉病抗性基因。我们在这里报告了Pm41的位置克隆和功能表征，Pm41是一种来自WEW的白粉病抗性基因，该基因编码卷曲螺旋，核苷酸结合位点和富含亮氨酸的重复蛋白（CNL）。诱变和稳定的遗传转化证实了Pm41对小麦Bgt感染的功能。
• 我们证明Pm41仅在南部WEW人群中以极低的频率（1.81％）存在。其他WEW人群，驯化的Emmer，硬粒小麦和普通小麦中都没有这种蛋白，这表明祖先的Pm41仅限于其原产地，而没有纳入驯化的小麦中。
• 我们的发现强调了保存和开发原始WEW基因库的重要性，这是发现抗性基因以改良现代小麦品种的宝贵资源。