Breeding natural nematode resistand crops by quantitative loss of susceptibility

Sedentary plant-parasitic nematodes modify host cells into permanent feeding structures. The capacity of these permanent feeding structures to continuously deliver nutrients to feeding nematodes for several weeks is a crucial factor for nematode propagation on plants. The ontogeny of nematode-induced feeding structures involves hundreds of different plant genes. Plants are thought to harbour quantitative genetic variation in their ability to facilitate the flow of nutrients via the nematode-induced feeding structures. But, the underlying molecular basis of this quantitative variation in susceptibility is not well understood. We have recently shown that natural allelic variation in plant genes that are essential for parasitism of nematodes can have a significant quantitative impact on nematode propagation. Our findings demonstrate that breeders can exploit this natural variation for breeding nematode resistant crops by accumulating multiple loss-of-susceptibility alleles in their germplasm.