AUTHOR=Boschi Federico , Schvartzman Claudia , Murchio Sara , Ferreira Virginia , Siri Maria I. , Galván Guillermo A. , Smoker Matthew , Stransfeld Lena , Zipfel Cyril , Vilaró Francisco L. , Dalla-Rizza Marco 

TITLE=Enhanced Bacterial Wilt Resistance in Potato Through Expression of Arabidopsis EFR and Introgression of Quantitative Resistance from Solanum commersonii

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2017.01642

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2017.01642

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<p>Bacterial wilt (BW) caused by <italic>Ralstonia solanacearum</italic> is responsible for substantial losses in cultivated potato (<italic>Solanum tuberosum</italic>) crops worldwide. Resistance genes have been identified in wild species; however, introduction of these through classical breeding has achieved only partial resistance, which has been linked to poor agronomic performance. The <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic> (At) pattern recognition receptor elongation factor-Tu (EF-Tu) receptor (EFR) recognizes the bacterial pathogen-associated molecular pattern EF-Tu (and its derived peptide elf18) to confer anti-bacterial immunity. Previous work has shown that transfer of AtEFR into tomato confers increased resistance to <italic>R. solanacearum</italic>. Here, we evaluated whether the transgenic expression of <italic>AtEFR</italic> would similarly increase BW resistance in a commercial potato line (INIA Iporá), as well as in a breeding potato line (09509.6) in which quantitative resistance has been introgressed from the wild potato relative <italic>Solanum commersonii.</italic> Resistance to <italic>R. solanacearum</italic> was evaluated by damaged root inoculation under controlled conditions. Both INIA Iporá and 09509.6 potato lines expressing <italic>AtEFR</italic> showed greater resistance to <italic>R. solanacearum</italic>, with no detectable bacteria in tubers evaluated by multiplex-PCR and plate counting. Notably, AtEFR expression and the introgression of quantitative resistance from <italic>S. commersonii</italic> had a significant additive effect in 09509.6-AtEFR lines. These results show that the combination of heterologous expression of <italic>AtEFR</italic> with quantitative resistance introgressed from wild relatives is a promising strategy to develop BW resistance in potato.</p>