Migration of Puccinia triticina hit renowned across countries and continents

The new arrival of wheat rust pathotypes through migration during wheat cropping season requires regular monitoring to secure wheat production. In the present study, we collected leaf rust (Puccinia triticina Eriks.) infected wheat leaves from three major wheat growing provinces of Pakistan in the year 2014 to assess the haplotype diversity of P. triticina (Pt) isolates. The rDNA ITS sequence data of collected isolates was used in NCBI BLAST analysis. The blast hits showed best matches with Pt accessions EU014050 (Iran), JN120331 (Iran), JX533577 (Iran), AY956549 (Iran), DQ417412 (Czech Republic), DQ417418 (Israel), DQ417413 (Slovakia) and AF511083 (Louisiana). However, in cluster analysis, the Pakistani isolates showed strong bootstrap support with only Iranian and Indian (races 77-5 & 104-4) accessions that indicated eastward migratory mode of Pt pathotypes in Pakistan through westerly wind patterns. The predominant genotype DQ417412 (similar in alignment with AY956549 from Iran) overcome the resistance of top Pakistan mega varieties Seher06, Inqilab91, Kiran95, SKD1, TJ83 and NIFA-Batoor. Hence, the ITS based information remains a rapid molecular tool for pathogen surveillance across countries and continents.