Potato Late Blight Control Using R-Gene Polyculture by GMO

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the fourth most important crop in the world and one of the top seven important crops in china. Late blight is a devastating disease of potato caused by Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary, which was the reason of the Great Irish Famine in 1845. Today, late blight remains the No. 1 threat to potato production. In previous research, it proved that it was difficult to control potato late blight just because P. infestans ranked the highest risk in the evolutionary potential and it could easily mutate its Avr genes and thus overcome potato plants carrying corresponding R genes. So, one of the promising solutions for late blight control is to release several R genes simultaneously and to artificially create a resistance polymorphism in the field, such as the strategy so called R gene polyculture. In the past years, scientists gained a great success in cloning R genes conferring late blight resistance, providing a starting point to create R gene polyculture by means of cisgenic technology.