Conserved domain such as nucleotide binding site (NBS) was found in several cloned plant disease resistance genes. Based on the NBS domain, resistance gene analogues (RGAs) have been isolated. A full-length cDNA, SPR1 was obtained by rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) method. Sequence analysis indicated that the length of SPR1 was 3 066 bp, including a complete open reading frame of 2 667 bp encoding SPR1 protein of 888 amino acids. Compared with known NBS-LRR genes, it presented relatively high amino acid sequence identity. The polypeptide has a typical structure of nonTIR-NBS-LRR genes, with NB-ARC, CC, and LRR domains. The SPR1-related sequences belonged to multicopy gene family in sweetpotato genome according to the result of Southern blotting. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis showed SPR1 expressed in all tested tissues. The cloning of putative resistance gene from sweetpotato provides a basis for studying the structure and function of sweetpotato disease-resistance relating genes and disease resistant genetic breeding in sweetpotato. The gene has been submitted to the GenBank database, and the accession number is EF428453.