IDRIS- Improving Disease Resistance In Strawberry

近年来，浆果作物是英国园艺业最成功的作物之一。本世纪以来，浆果的零售额从2000年的1.46亿英镑增长到2011年的7.83亿英镑，目前占英国水果总销售额的18.4%。草莓占整个行业的60%，在2011年3月至2012年3月期间，草莓的销量增长了10%，持续强劲增长。这些成就是由科技进步推动的，包括改良的品种、更好的病虫害防治以及使生产更加集约化的创新。现代品种显著延长了季节，提高了单株产量，提高了1类果实的百分比，改善了食用品质，这增加了需求。尽管近年来取得了令人印象深刻的成绩，但英国草莓产业现在面临着一些严峻的挑战，更多的变化和不可预测的天气条件给种植者带来了问题，许多杀菌剂和土壤熏蒸剂的退出导致土壤传播疾病的作物损失增加，如枯萎病、冠腐病和红核病，分别由大丽黄萎病、疫霉疫霉菌和fragariae疫霉菌引起。我们之前的工作（通过国际合作）获得了二倍体野生草莓的基因组序列和抗枯萎病分子标记，这些标记现在正在EMR用于标记辅助育种。这是世界上第一个开发抗枯萎病分子标记的项目。正在进行的工作旨在提供抗霉变（一种主要的空气传播病原体）的标记，这项工作将提供标记，这将有助于更有效地选择抗冠腐病和红核。这项工作的高潮将导致对英国主要土壤和空气传播病原体的保护。此外，我们希望提出更多关于植物-病原体相互作用进化的基本问题，并为栽培草莓（其基因组比二倍体林地草莓大4倍，因为它每条染色体包含8个拷贝，而不是2个）生成一个草图基因组序列。栽培草莓的基因组序列对于确定控制抗病和其他农艺性状的分子途径和过程以及基因在进化过程中如何变化的基础研究至关重要。例如，对二倍体野生草莓和八倍体栽培草莓的比较将提高我们对植物及其病原体之间的关系如何在简单和更复杂的植物基因组之间变化的理解。我们希望鉴定出识别病原体中保守的、缓慢进化的蛋白质的植物抗性基因，这将允许宿主对许多病原体种族产生广泛的抗性，并导致持久的抗性。业界热衷于支持一项有针对性的预育种计划，该计划以研究为基础，导致更有效的分子育种方法，利用基因组学的最新发展来加速育种过程。最终，改良品种将通过获得许可的繁殖者向英国和欧盟的种植者公开提供。目前，虽然草莓是多年生植物，但标准的行业做法是将植物在地下只种植8到15个月，因为多季种植通常会导致土壤疾病的积累，对产量和果实质量都有有害影响。具有强大和可靠的抗性的植物将允许种植多年，这将导致可持续集约化，降低生产成本和减少杀菌剂投入。对于消费者来说，这项工作将导致草莓使用的化学物质大大减少，并且由于减少了与频繁重新种植相关的能源投入，生产的碳成本也大大降低。

Berry crops have been one of the great success stories of British horticulture in recent years. During this century, the retail value of berry sales has increased from £146 million in 2000 to £783m in 2011, now representing 18.4 per cent of total UK fruit sales. Strawberries are 60% of the sector and continue to experience strong growth with sales increasing by 10% between March 2011 and March 2012. These achievements have been driven by scientific and technological advances, including improved cultivars, better control of pests and diseases and innovations allowing more intensive production. Modern cultivars have achieved a significant extension of the season, higher yields per plant, higher percentage of Class 1 fruit and improved eating quality, which has increased demand.Despite this impressive performance in recent years, the UK strawberry industry now faces some serious challenges, with more variable and unpredictable weather conditions causing problems for growers, and the withdrawal of many fungicides and soil fumigants leading to increased crop losses from soil-borne diseases such as wilt, crown rot and red core, caused by Verticillium dahliae, Phytophthora cactorum and Phytophthora fragariae respectively. Our previous work resulted in a genome sequence for the diploid wild strawberry (through international collaboration) and molecular markers for wilt resistance that are now being deployed at EMR for marker assisted breeding. This is the first programme in the world to develop molecular markers for wilt resistance. Ongoing work aims to provide markers for mildew resistance (a major airborne pathogen), and this proposed work will provide markers which will facilitate more effective selection for resistance to crown rot and red core. This culmination of this work will lead to protection against the major soil and airborne pathogens in the UK. Moreover, we wish to ask more basic questions about the evolution of plant-pathogen interactions and generate a draft genome sequence for the cultivated strawberry (whose genome is four times bigger than the diploid woodland strawberry, as it contains eight copies of each chromosome, rather than two). A genome sequence for the cultivated strawberry is essential for the identification of molecular pathways and processes controlling disease resistance and other agronomic traits, as well as basic studies into how genes have changed throughout evolution. For example, comparisons between the diploid wild strawberry and octoploid cultivated strawberry will improve our understanding of how relationships between plants and their pathogens change between simple and more complex plant genomes. We wish to identify plant resistance genes that recognise conserved, slowly evolving proteins in pathogens, that will allow wide host resistance to many pathogen races and lead to durable resistance. Industry are enthusiastic to support a targeted pre-breeding programme underpinned by research that leads to a more effective molecular breeding approach, taking advantage of the latest developments in genomics to accelerate the breeding process. Ultimately, improved cultivars would become publicly available, via licensed propagators, to growers throughout the UK and the EU. Currently, although strawberries are perennial, the standard industry practice is to maintain the plants in the ground for only 8 to 15 months, as cropping for multiple seasons usually results in a build-up of soil diseases that have deleterious effects on both yield and fruit quality. Plants with strong and reliable resistance would allow cropping for multiple years, which would lead to sustainable intensification, reduce production costs and lower fungicide inputs. For consumers this work will lead to strawberries that have had significantly fewer chemicals applied to them and a considerably lowered carbon cost of production because the energy inputs associated with frequent replanting have been reduced.