![Photo: Bean leaf showing pustules (fruiting structures) of the bean rust fungus. Link to photo information](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509202556im_/http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/jun06/d508-1i.jpg)
Discovery of 3,000 proteins in common beans could
help breeders develop crop resistance to a major problem, bean rust fungus, as
well as to Asian soybean rust, a growing threat to soybeans in the United
States. Click the image for more information about it.
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![For further reading](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509202556im_/http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/For-further-reading.gif)
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Discovery May Solve Devastating Rust Fungus Issue for
Bean Growers
By Alfredo
Flores
February 27, 2009 The detection of 3,000 proteins
produced in plants of common beans could help breeders develop resistance
against the bean rust fungus, Uromyces appendiculatus, a major concern
for domestic dry bean and snap bean growers. This rust is prevalent throughout
the continental United States, according to research by
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
scientists and cooperators.
Plant pathologist
Bret
Cooper, at the ARS
Soybean
Genomics and Improvement Laboratory (SGIL) in Beltsville, Md., leads the
research, which could help scientists determine which proteins produced in bean
plants are involved in providing resistance to rust fungus.
The symptoms of this rust initially appear as small white flecks on the
upper leaf surface, then develop into reddish-brown pustules (small eruptions
on the leaf surface). When severe infections occur, the leaves curl upward,
dry, turn brown, and drop prematurely, and pod set, pod fill and seed size are
reduced.
To make matters worse, in 2004, a separate rust fungus that causes Asian
soybean rustwhich infects soybeans, but not common beansarrived in
the United States. Domestic soybean cultivars have little resistance to soybean
rust, and now America's second largest crop is severely threatened by this new
disease. It is hoped that the discovery of the dry bean rust disease resistance
proteins will help identify similar proteins in soybeans and advance soybean
breeding efforts as well.
Until recently, disease resistance genes and the proteins they produce were
studied one at a time, but Cooper and his team used a process called
high-throughput mass spectrometry to identify, at a much faster rate, proteins
by their unique molecular mass. With this technology, they evaluated more than
3,000 rust resistance proteins in bean over the course of two-and-a-half years,
and measured how protein levels change in plants, and which ones provide
disease resistance.
This study revealed more than 1,500 molecular battles
interactions between the fungus and the plantand led to the
identification of a potential set of proteins thought to be master regulators
of a strong resistance response in the plant. This new information may help
breeders improve bean varieties that are currently threatened by rust.
The scientific team also includes molecular biologist
Mark
Tucker, plant physiologist
Kimberly
Campbell, and bean breeder
Talo
Pastor-Corrales at SGIL, as well as molecular biologist
Brian
Scheffler at the Mid South Area Genomics Laboratory in Stoneville, Miss.
Other collaborators include scientists at Johns
Hopkins University in Baltimore and the University of Missouri in Columbia.
The research was published recently in Molecular and Cellular Proteomics.
ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency in the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.