Exploiting wild tomato genetic resources and pathogen effector diversity for resistance

Plant pathogens, including bacteria, can damage plants and cause significant crop losses. Among those Pseudomonas syringae is a major pathogen of tomato plants. It is now accepted that domesticated plant crops are often more sensitive to pathogens than their wild relatives. We aim to exploit a library of pathogens virulence factors to find new bacterial gene that trigger an immune response. Then we will use a targeted approach to sequence wild tomato resistance genes. Finally, we will exploit this data to generate a high-throughput library to identified new resistance genes in Tomato against Pseudomonas syringae. This project will provide benefit to the partner by idetifying new resistance genes in Tomato crops using both the diversity of the pathogen and of the wild relatives of domesticated tomato.

Faculty Supervisor:

David Guttman;Darell Desveaux

Student:

Fabien Lonjon

Partner:

George Weston

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

University:

University of Toronto

Program: