Exploiting Genome Wide Diversity for disease resistance improvement in oilseed rape

Informations

Funding country

France

Acronym

GEWIDIS

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2013

End date

-

Budget

412,590 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

The development of integrated pest management will more and more rely upon the identification, utilization and ultimate deployment of effective and durable host resistances to the most important pathogens through the design of new multi-resistant varieties. In oilseed rape, many efforts have aimed at describing the genetic architecture of disease resistance but these studies were performed independently for each disease. Moreover, there is a lack of genetic variability for resistance within OSR for many diseases and some valuable resistance sources have been identified in the progenitors of OSR, especially in B. oleracea. Thus, in order to progress towards multi-resistant varieties, there is a need for a better integration of researches on genetics of disease resistance in Brassica species and for a wider exploitation of Brassica diversity through the identification of valuable resistance alleles for breeding. The general objective of GeWiDis project is to perform a comparative analysis of the structural organization and allelic diversity of resistance factors to most important diseases of OSR in diverse Brassica materials and to optimize the strategy of breeding multi-resistant varieties through the exploitation of a wide genetic diversity. The project aims to (i) investigate the localisation of the resistance factors involved in the different diseases and their relationships (common/specific regions, positive/negative correlations), (ii) study the impact of Brassica genome organization on the genetic diversity and evolution of these resistance factors among different Brassica materials, (iii) identify key genomic regions for resistance and valuable resistance alleles in the Brassica resources and associated makers to be used in breeding and (iv) set up an optimized scheme for the introgression of new resistance variability in OSR. This project will take advantage of the complementarities of the partners from the two countries to generate considerable amounts of new knowledge on OSR resistance through a multi-disease integrated approach and high throughput phenotypic and genomic data production on very original Brassica genetic resources (core collections of OSR and B. oleracea, semi-synthetic and synthetic B. napus). Genome wide association studies and fine scale sequence analyses in key regions will allow to determine how polyploidy affects resistance factors organization/allelic diversity and resistance expression. Common and specific key regions for resistance to the different diseases will be identified as well as resistance haplotypes/alleles either already introduced into OSR or to be introgressed from diploid species through an optimized scheme. GeWiDis, through the combined efforts of public and private partners, will then bring new resources and tools for an efficient breeding of multi-resistant varieties adapted to the current and future environmental context.