Blast disease caused by the fungus Magnaporthe grisea results in significant yield losses of cereal crops across the world. To date, very few regulatory genes contributing to blast resistance in grass species have been identified and the genetic basis of blast resistance in cereals remains elusive. Here, a core collection of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) containing 888 accessions was evaluated through inoculation with the blast strain HN-1 and a genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed to detect regulators responsible for blast disease resistance in foxtail millet. The phenotypic variation of foxtail millet accessions inoculated with the blast strain HN-1 indicated that less than 1.60% of the samples were highly resistant, 35.25% were moderately resistant, 57.09% were moderately susceptible, and 6.08% were highly susceptible. The geographical pattern of blast-resistant samples revealed that a high proportion of resistant accessions were located in lower latitude regions where the foxtail millet growing season has higher rain precipitation. Using 720000 SNP markers covering the Setaria genome, GWAS showed that two genomic loci from chromosomes 2 and 9 were significantly associated with blast disease resistance in foxtail millet. Finally, eight putative genes were identified using rice blast-related transcriptomic data. The results of this work lay a foundation for the foxtail millet blast resistance biology and provide guidance for breeding practices in this promising crop species and other cereals.

由真菌Magnaporthe grisea引起的稻瘟病导致全世界谷类作物的产量大幅下降。迄今为止，已经确定了对禾本科植物抗稻瘟病有贡献的调控基因非常少，而且谷物抗稻瘟病的遗传基础仍然难以捉摸。在这里，小米的核心系列（Setaria italica) 包含 888 个种质，通过接种稻瘟病株 HN-1 进行评估，并进行了全基因组关联研究 (GWAS)，以检测负责谷子稻瘟病抗性的调节剂。接种稻瘟病株HN-1的谷子种质的表型变异表明，不到1.60%的样品为高度抗性，35.25%为中抗，57.09%为中度敏感，6.08%为高度敏感。抗爆样品的地理格局表明，高比例的抗性种质位于谷子生长季节降雨量较高的低纬度地区。使用覆盖狗尾草基因组的 720000 个 SNP 标记，GWAS 表明，来自 2 号和 9 号染色体的两个基因组位点与谷子的稻瘟病抗性显着相关。最后，使用与稻瘟病相关的转录组数据鉴定了八个假定基因。这项工作的结果为谷子稻瘟病抗性生物学奠定了基础，并为这种有前途的作物物种和其他谷物的育种实践提供了指导。