New biotechnological tools to accelerate scab-resistance trait transfer to apple

Abstract

Apple is a fruit crop cultivated worldwide. Apple orchards are exposed to a diverse set of environmental and biological factors that affect the productivity and sustainability of the culture. Many of the efforts and costs for apple production rely on reducing the incidence of fungal diseases, and one of the main diseases is apple scab caused by the fungus Venturia inaequalis. The economic impact of scab on apple productivity has guided many breeding programs to search for cultivars resistant to apple scab. Introgression from wild relatives has been successful to some extent, and genetic engineering for resistant cultivars has even been employed. This review presents the techniques used to the present time to obtain pathogen-resistant apple cultivars and introduces new biotechnological approaches based on plant plasmids that show promising results for delivering genetic traits with a short-term perspective.

Cinnamate‐CoA ligase is involved in biosynthesis of benzoate‐derived biphenyl phytoalexin in Malus × domestica ‘Golden Delicious’ cell cultures

“…One of the strategies adopted for disease management in apple is the genetic production of resistant cisgenic lines. The use of a virus‐based system that utilises a plant episomal expression vector (Li et al ., ) was successful in increasing the resistance of the susceptible apple cultivar ‘Gala Galaxy’ via the insertion of a scab resistance gene (Vanblaere et al ., ; Cusin et al ., ). Similarly, homologous expression of apple CNL in susceptible cultivars is expected to produce resistant traits.…”

Plant biomacromolecule delivery methods in the 21st century

“…The authors named this minimal viral construct p1470 and demonstrated its ability to deliver marker genes. So far, the IL-60 vector system has been successfully used in over 40 plant species belonging to 14 different families including perennial woody plants, such as orange, apple, and grape (Peretz et al, 2007;Cusin, Revers and Maraschin, 2017;Malabarba et al, 2018). The vector was introduced into the plants via root infiltration or by syringe inoculation.…”

Comparative metabolomics of scab-resistant and susceptible apple cell cultures in response to scab fungus elicitor treatment

“…In a single apple-growing season, multiple cycles of conidiospore production and secondary infections occurs 13 . The control of the disease relies mainly on multiple fungicides spray 14 , which exhibit toxic effect to human health and may even contaminate the environment. Moreover, extended use of scab controlling fungicides may result in selection pressure on the V .…”