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Abstract:
Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) is a devastating disease that affects wheat, barley and other small grain crops. Despite huge economic losses, current measures have not yielded desirable resistance to FHB. Resistance to F. graminearum is quantitative and thus identification of putative transmembrane receptors and signalling components involved in plant immunity will help combat this disease. A reverse genetic screen using 249 T-DNA Arabidopsis mutant plants identified two putative leucine-rich transmembrane localized receptors, RLK7 and APEX and a downstream signalling component RbohF as contributors to FHB resistance. The expression analysis suggested that RLK7 and APEX activated distinct hormone signalling pathways, ethylene and salicylic acid, to mediate the resistance. Our analyses indicated that as an intracellular signalling component, RbohF integrates signals from these hormone signalling pathways to regulate stomatal pore closures, a potential entry point for the pathogen. Overall, our findings identified key genes involved in mediating quantitative resistance to F. graminearum.