Safeguarding UK's best-loved fruit: immunity diversity in banana cultivars

香蕉品种是全球4亿多人的主食。巴拿马病在20世纪50年代消灭了主要的出口品种“大米歇尔”，并在中美洲和南美洲经济中造成了重大损失，直到它被卡文迪什品种取代。历史正在重演。一种新的品种TR4已经摧毁了亚洲的卡文迪什种植园，并于2019年在美国哥伦比亚首次被发现。农民面临着迫在眉睫的风险，需要有抗灾能力的作物。该项目将回答香蕉和芭蕉（芭蕉属）免疫NLR受体多样性的基本问题，以及这种多样性与倍性和基因组组成以及对巴拿马病（香蕉的一种破坏性真菌血管病）的反应的关系。该项目将确定候选基因，以促进抗性品种的发展。

Banana cultivars are a staple food for more than 400 million people worldwide. Panama disease annihilated the dominant export cultivar 'Gros Michel' in the 1950s and caused significant loses in Central and South American economies until its replacement with the Cavendish variety. History is repeating itself. A new race, TR4, has devastated Cavendish plantations in Asia and was firstly identified in America in Colombia in 2019. Farmers face an imminent risk and require resilient crops.The project will answer fundamental questions on the diversity of immunity NLR receptors in bananas and plantains (Musa genus), and the relation of this diversity with ploidy and genome composition and response to Panama disease, a devastating fungal vascular disease in bananas. The project will identify candidate genes to contribute to developing resistant varieties.