Unraveling the molecules hidden in the gray shadows of quantitative disease resistance to pathogens

One of the most challenging questions in plant breeding and molecular plant pathology research is what are the genetic and molecular bases of quantitative disease resistance (QDR)?. The scarce knowledge of how this type of resistance works has hindered plant breeders to fully take advantage of it. To overcome these obstacles new methodologies for the study of quantitative traits have been developed. Approaches such as genetic mapping, identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) and association mapping, including candidate gene approach and genome wide association studies, have been historically undertaken to dissect quantitative traits and therefore to study QDR. Additionally, great advances in quantitative phenotypic data collection have been provided to improve these analyses. Recently, genes associated to QDR have been cloned, leading to new hypothesis concerning the molecular bases of this type of resistance. In this review we present the more recent advances about QDR and corresponding application, which have allowed postulating new ideas that can help to construct new QDR models. Some of the hypotheses presented here as possible explanations for QDR are related to the expression level and alternative splicing of some defense-related genes expression, the action of “weak alleles” of R genes, the presence of allelic variants in genes involved in the defense response and a central role of kinases or pseudokinases. With the information recapitulated in this review it is possible to conclude that the conceptual distinction between qualitative and quantitative resistance may be questioned since both share important components.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Vásquez, Andrea Ximena, Soto Sedano, Johana Carolina, López Carrascal, Camilo Ernesto
Format: Digital revista
Language:eng
Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia - Sede Bogotá - Facultad de Ciencias - Departamento de Biología 2018
Online Access:https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/actabiol/article/view/66487
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!