Identification, cloning and functional characterization of genes related to fire blight resistance in Malus X robusta

• Applicant: Dr. Andreas Peil
• Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Cesare Gessler
• Subject Area: Plant Breeding and Plant Pathology
• Term: from 2010 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 175019554

The fire blight disease caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora is currently the major constraint for apple production in several European countries including Germany and Switzerland. An effective control is only possible with antibiotics but the application is particular restricted and not desired. An environmentally sound alternative is the growing of resistant apple cultivars, but available resistant cultivars do not fit the consumer demands. Since the breeding of a new resistant cultivar is very time consuming and nobody can assure that the apple will be accepted by the consumers the use of recombinant DNA-technology for the improvement of accepted cultivars offers the most promising strategy to solve the problem of fire blight by using Malus own genes. Therefore a map based cloning approach will be used to isolate a QTL region, explaining up to 80% of the phenotypic variance, recently detected in the wild species M. X robusta 5 (Mr5). The obtained sequence will be used to identify candidate gene(s), which will then be molecular characterized and tested in transgenic plants. The most promising candidate gene(s) will be finally used to develop a cisgenic fire blight resistant apple plant. Furthermore the identification and characterization of downstream acting genes and proteins of Mr5 differentially expressed after inoculation with wild type and mutant pathogen strains will be analyzed to get more knowledge about the mechanisms of fire blight resistance.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Participating Person: Professorin Dr. Magda-Viola Hanke