IDRIS- Improving Disease Resistance In Strawberry

近年来，浆果作物一直是英国园艺业最成功的故事之一。在本世纪，浆果的零售额从2000年的1.46亿GB增加到2011年的7.83亿GB，现在占英国水果总销售额的18.4%。草莓占该行业的60%，并继续经历强劲增长，在2011年3月至2012年3月期间，销售额增长了10%。这些成就是由科技进步推动的，包括改良品种、更好地控制病虫害以及允许更集约化生产的创新。现代草莓品种显著延长了种植季节，提高了单株产量，提高了一级果率，改善了食用品质，这增加了需求。尽管近年来表现令人印象深刻，但英国草莓产业现在面临着一些严峻的挑战，更多可变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停用导致了作物因黄萎病、冠腐病和红核病等土传疾病而增加的损失，这些疾病分别由黄萎病、恶疫病和碎疫病引起。我们之前的工作产生了二倍体野生草莓的基因组序列(通过国际合作)和抗枯萎病的分子标记，目前正在EMR部署用于标记辅助育种。这是世界上第一个开发抗枯萎病分子标记的计划。正在进行的工作旨在提供抗霉菌(一种主要的空气传播病原体)的标记，这项拟议的工作将提供有助于更有效地选择抗冠腐病和红心的标记。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四倍，因为它包含每个染色体的八个拷贝，而不是两个拷贝)生成一个基因组草图。栽培草莓的基因组序列对于鉴定控制抗病和其他农艺性状的分子途径和过程以及对基因在整个进化过程中如何变化的基础研究是至关重要的。例如，比较二倍体野生草莓和八倍体栽培草莓将有助于我们理解植物与病原菌之间的关系是如何在简单和复杂的植物基因组之间发生变化的。我们希望识别植物抗性基因，识别病原体中保守的、缓慢进化的蛋白质，这些蛋白质将使寄主对许多病原菌小种产生广泛的抗性，并导致持久的抗性。工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，利用基因组学的最新发展来加速育种进程，从而导致更有效的分子育种方法。最终，改良的品种将通过有执照的繁殖者向英国和欧盟的种植者公开提供。目前，虽然草莓是多年生草莓，但标准的行业做法是将草莓在地里保持8至15个月，因为多个季节的种植通常会导致土壤病害的积累，这对产量和水果质量都有有害影响。抗性强和可靠的植物将允许多年种植，这将导致可持续的集约化，降低生产成本和较低的杀菌剂投入。对于消费者来说，这项工作将导致草莓使用的化学物质明显减少，生产的碳成本也大大降低，因为与频繁重新种植相关的能量投入已经减少。

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.