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Title: RESISTANCE TO LATE BLIGHT FROM SOMATIC HYBRIDS BETWEEN SOLANUM BULBOCASTANUM AND POTATO

Author
item Helgeson, John
item POHLMAN, J - UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
item AUSTIN, S - UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Submitted to: Nature Magazine
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/12/1995
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Late blight disease, caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans, is a serious problem world-wide. This disease was the major cause of the Irish potato famine and no standard US cultivar has adequate resistance to the fungus even today. This paper reports on a new source of resistance found in Solanum bulbocastanum, a wild species related to potato, and brought into potato breeding lines. Plants produced by crossing the somatic hybrids (plants produced by fusion of leaf cells of potato and the wild species) with potato breeding lines were highly resistant even under field conditions. These results indicate that a new source of resistance, which could save US potato farmers $200 million or more each year, can now be used to produce improved, resistant varieties for US production.

Technical Abstract: The wild Mexican species Solanum bulbocastanum is highly resistant to late blight of potato caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans but virtually impossible to cross directly with potato. Somatic hybrids produced by fusion of leaf cells of the two species retained the high resistance to late blight of the S. bulbocastanum parent and two successive backcrosses with potato cultivars demonstrated transmission of the trait. These results illustrate the power of somatic hybridization to capture genes that have hitherto been inaccessible to plant breeders.