Source: CropBiotech Update

Potatoes rank number four in the list of world food crops (after rice, wheat and maize), and are grown worldwide. Potatoes are however affected by numerous diseases, which threaten potato crop production, in particular by small-scale, resource-poor farmers in developing countries who lack access to chemical controls and certified disease-free seeds. Classical breeding for resistance to pathogens involves the identification of resistance genes, often harboured by wild relatives of cultivated species. These genes are introgressed into cultivars by crossing the “donor parent”, which carries the resistance gene, to the “recipient parent” to be improved. The resulting progeny is then repeatedly backcrossed to the “recipient parent” to remove unwanted genes carried by the “donor parent”. Knowledge of the genetic position of the desirable traits and of closely linked DNA-based markers allows the targeting of specific genes for introgression, and provides a fast track to increase genetic gain in crop breeding programs. This technique is known as marker assisted selection.

Researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research have developed potato lines that harbor multiple resistance genes by marker assisted selection, described in the report “Marker-assisted combination of major genes for pathogen resistance”. The article is published in the Online First section of the journal Theoretical Applied Genetics. The lines generated are resistant to four important potato pathogens: the Potato Virus Y, the soilborne fungus Synchytrium endobioticum (responsible for potato wart), and the root cyst nematodes Globodera rostochiensis and Globodera pallida. The selected plants can be used as sources of multiple resistance, and they are available from the IPK (Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung) potato germplasm bank maintained at 18190 Groß-Lüsewitz, Germany.

Subscribers to Theoretical and Applied Genetics may access the PDF file of the article
“Marker-assisted combination of major genes for pathogen resistance” at: http://www.springerlink.com/media/99a0hcptrm6rtg4vkyvm/contributions/x/4/5/4/x45451t272267m25.pdf