INGEBI   02650
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES EN INGENIERIA GENETICA Y BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR "DR. HECTOR N TORRES"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Polyphenol oxidase down-regulation imparts enhanced resistance to P. infestans in potato.
Autor/es:
LLORENTE, B.E.; BRAVO-ALMONACID, F.F.; TORRES, H.N.; FLAWIÁ, M.M.; ALONSO, G.D.
Lugar:
Rosario. Santa Fe, Argentina.
Reunión:
Congreso; XLII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Bioquímica y Biología Molecular.; 2006
Institución organizadora:
SAIB
Resumen:
Phytophtora infestans, the causal agent of late blight is the most devastating disease of potato and to a lesser extent also a problem in tomato cultivation worldwide. During the 1840s, late blight disease was responsible for the Irish potato famine causing over one million fatalities. Nowadays, grown potato cultivars lack adequate blight tolerance and disease management is currently based on the application of continuously increased amounts of fungicides due to the pathogen ability for developing resistance. It’s estimated that late blight cause annual loses of over 2.750 million dollars to developing countries and that these countries invest about 750 million dollars annually in fungicides to its control. In our laboratory we developed transgenic potato plants with reduced enzymatic browning activity and reduced bruising susceptibility by knocking down the polyphenol oxidase (PPO) genes and evaluated their resistance to P. infestans. In vitro infection assays with P. infestans sporangia displayed an enhanced disease resistance in the transgenic potatoes. We hypothesize that this resistance increase to potato late blight could be a consequence of the incapacity of PPO to inactivate defence molecules like phenolic compounds normally formed against fungal infections.