Patent ID: 8373022

Claim:
A method of generating or increasing resistance to at least one biotrophic fungus of the genus Phakopsora in a plant, plant part, plant tissue, or plant cell, comprising: a) increasing protein quantity or function of at least one Bax inhibitor-1 (BI1) protein in a plant or part thereof in comparison with a control plant or part thereof by: i) stably transforming a plant cell with a recombinant expression cassette comprising a nucleic acid sequence encoding the BI1 protein operably linked to a heterologous tissue-specific promoter, ii) regenerating a plant from said plant cell, and iii) expressing the nucleic acid sequence encoding the BI1 protein in at least one part or tissue of said plant, b) selecting a plant or part thereof having resistance to at least one biotrophic fungus of the genus Phakopsora generated or increased in comparison with a control plant or part thereof, wherein the plant is a soybean plant and the BI1 protein comprises an amino acid sequence having at least 90% sequence identity with the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 6.