The molecular and biochemical mechanisms underlying Anthracnose resistance in Capsicum Acronym: ANTHRACAP

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Background. Anthracnose (Collectrichum spp) causes pre and post-harvest fruit rot, leading to serve global economic losses. In the case of Pepper (hot and Sweet) anthracnose infections have become one of the main barriers to production. Our industrial partner, Syngenta, has identified several genotypes within collections of natural diversity that display resistance to Anthracnose. Segregating populations have been generated in which resistance to Colletotrichum species has been identified and mapped. These resulting QTL have now been fixed, enabling the study of underpinning biochemical and molecular mechanisms responsible for the Anthracnose resistance traits. Aims and Objectives. The proposed project activities aim to elucidate the biochemical and molecular mechanisms associated with Anthracnose resistance in pepper (Capsicum). To achieve this aim the following objectives will be carried out. Objective 1. The exploitation of metabolomics, proteomics and transcriptomics to ascertain the underlying molecular and biochemical components responsible for conferring resistance to Colletotrichum and potentially other fungal pathogens.Objective 2. Identify constitutive or induced antifungal metabolites synthesised by pepper genotypes that have potential broad applications as antimicrobial agents. This approach will involve natural product chemistry and bioassays.Objective 3. Functionally characterise candidate gene(s) identified in (i) using Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) in pepper (developed by previous iCASE students) or through the use of stable transformation in tomato.