Understanding and exploiting late blight resistance in the age of effectors

V.G.A.A. Vleeshouwers, S. Raffaele, J.H. Vossen, N. Champouret, R.F. Oliva, M.E. Segretin, H. Rietman, L.M. Cano, A.A. Lokossou, G.J.T. Kessel, M. Pel, S. Kamoun

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

320 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is the world’s third-largest food crop. It severely suffers from late blight, a devastating disease caused by Phytophthora infestans. This oomycete pathogen secretes host-translocated RXLR effectors that include avirulence (AVR) proteins, which are targeted by resistance (R) proteins from wild Solanum species. Most Solanum R genes appear to have coevolved with P. infestans at its center of origin in central Mexico. Various R and Avr genes were recently cloned, and here we catalog characterized R-AVR pairs. We describe the mechanisms that P. infestans employs for evading R protein recognition and discuss partial resistance and partial virulence phenotypes in the context of our knowledge of effector diversity and activity. Genome-wide catalogs of P. infestans effectors are available, enabling effectoromics approaches that accelerate R gene cloning and specificity profiling. Engineering R genes with expanded pathogen recognition has also become possible. Importantly, monitoring effector allelic diversity in pathogen populations can assist in R gene deployment in agriculture
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)507-531
JournalAnnual Review of Phytopathology
Volume49
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011

Keywords

  • phytophthora-infestans mont.
  • potato late blight
  • allele conferring resistance
  • tuberosum subsp tuberosum
  • broad-spectrum resistance
  • race-specific resistance
  • solanum section petota
  • zinc-finger nucleases
  • r-gene differentials
  • host-plant cells

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