Introgression of peanut smut resistance from landraces to elite peanut cultivars (Arachis hypogaea L.)

Authors: BRESSANO, MARINA - Universidad Nacional De Cordoba; Massa, Alicia; Arias De Ares, Renee; ODDINO, CLAUDIO - Criadero El Carmen, Arg; DE BLAS, FRANCISCO - Universidad Nacional De Cordoba; Faustinelli, Paola; SOAVE, SARA - Criadero El Carmen, Arg; SOAVE, JUAN - Criadero El Carmen, Arg; PEREZ, MARIA - Universidad Nacional De Cordoba; Sobolev, Victor; BALZARINI, MONICA - Universidad Nacional De Cordoba; BUTELER, MARIO - Criadero El Carmen, Arg; SEIJO, GUILLERMO - Instituto De Botánica Del Nordeste

Submitted to: PLOS ONE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/22/2019
Publication Date: 2/8/2019
Citation: Bressano, M., Massa, A.N., Arias De Ares, R.S., Oddino, C., De Blas, F., Faustinelli, P.C., Soave, S., Soave, J., Perez, M., Sobolev, V., Balzarini, M., Buteler, M.I., Seijo, G.J. 2019. Introgression of peanut smut resistance from landraces to elite peanut cultivars (Arachis hypogaea L.). PLoS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211920.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211920

Interpretive Summary: Peanut smut caused by the fungal pathogen Thecaphora frezii Carranza & Lindquist is an emerging disease that threatens peanut production worldwide. This study reports two new sources of resistance identified in peanut landraces and its introgression into elite peanut cultivars. A multi-year phenotyping of three crosses between susceptible and resistant lines, as well as the genetic fingerprinting of parents and progeny of these crosses using simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) and Insertion/Deletion (InDel) markers indicate that the resistant landraces can be used as stable sources for future peanut breeding programs to develop smut resistant cultivars.

Technical Abstract: Smut disease caused by the fungal pathogen Thecaphora frezii Carranza & Lindquist is threatening the peanut production in Argentina. Fungicides commonly used in the peanut crop have shown little or no effect controlling the disease, making it a priority to obtain peanut varieties resistant to smut. In this study, recombinant inbred lines (RILs) were developed from three crosses between three susceptible peanut elite cultivars (Arachis hypogaea L. subsp. hypogaea) and two resistant landraces (Arachis hypogaea L. subsp. fastigiata Waldron). Parents and RILs were evaluated under high inoculum pressure (12000 teliospores g-1 of soil) over three years. Disease resistance parameters showed a broad range of variation with incidence mean values ranging from 1.0 to 35.0% and disease severity index ranging from 0.01 to 0.30. Heritability (h2) estimates of 0.76 to 0.88 indicated that resistance in the RILs was heritable, with several lines (4 to 7 from each cross) showing high degree of resistance and stability over three years. Evidence of genetic introgression was further supported by simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) and Insertion/Deletion (InDel) markers. This is the first report of smut genetic resistance identified in peanut landraces and its introgression into elite peanut cultivars.