Researchers at the James Hutton Institute say they have reached a milestone in understanding potato blight, which could pave the way for breeding resistant varieties.
Potato blight is one of the leading problems for growers today, causing massive crop losses, as well as being difficult to control with chemical and breeding methods.
But an international collaboration between scientists at the James Hutton Institute, University of Dundee in Scotland, Huazhong Agriculture University, Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China and Wageningen University has shed new light into how blight pathogens function.
Dr Petra Boevink, lead author of the research, explained: “We examined 52 effectors and found they were mostly located in the cytoplasm, nucleus, or cell membrane but some were at the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, peroxisomes or microtubules, suggesting they function in diverse locations.
“Forty-five effectors enhanced the pathogen’s ability to colonise leaves when expressed inside the plant cells, revealing that they can indeed assist infection.
“Mixing effectors that are known to suppress different plant immune system pathways gave an additive boost to infection. Given that the pathogen produces many effectors this indicates that these effectors work in combination to suppress the many different strategies the plants use to defend themselves.”
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