Scientists from the Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the John Innes
Centre in the UK and Ohio State University in the USA, have developed a new
approach to identify genes that can make potato resistant to Phytophthora
infestans.
Since the pathogen first ravaged the potato, an event epitomized by the
Great Potato Famine in Ireland, it has been a permanent threat, and has
repeatedly led to disastrous crop damage and high production costs.

When Phytophthora infects potato, a set of pathogen avirulence genes produce
effector proteins that modulate host innate immunity and enable parasitic
infection. The scientists demonstrated that by monitoring these effector
proteins, the discovery and isolation of pita disease-resistance genes can
be accelerated at an unprecedented rate.

In the study, the scientists tested a set of 54 effectors found in a large
set of wild potato species. An effector protein, known as IPiO, was found to
be directly correlated with blight resistance in three wild species. A
positive response against IPiO always occurred in plants that had the
resistance gene (Rpi-blb1, Rpi-pta1).

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[www.wur.nl]