Use of somatic hybridisation to transfer resistance to late blight and Potato Virus Y (PVY) into cultivated potato

Ramona Thieme

r.thieme@bafz.de
Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants, Institute of Agricultural Crops, Rudolf-Schick-Platz 3a, 18190 Groß Lüsewitz, Germany (Germany)

Ulrich Darsow

Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants, Institute of Agricultural Crops, Rudolf-Schick-Platz 3a, 18190 Groß Lüsewitz, Germany (Germany)

Lenuta Rakosy-Tican

Babes-Bolyai University, Clinicilor str. 5-7, 3400 Cluj-Napoca, Romania (Romania)

Zhensheng Kang

Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry, Yangling, 712100 Shaanxi, P.R. China (China)

Tatjana Gavrilenko

N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR), B. Morskaya Str. 42, 190000 St. Petersburg, Russia (Russian Federation)

Olga Antonova

N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Industry (VIR), B. Morskaya Str. 42, 190000 St. Petersburg, Russia (Russian Federation)

Udo Heimbach

Federal Biological Re- search Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Institute for Plant Protection in Field Crops and Grassland, Messeweg 11/12, 38104 Braunschweig, Germany (Germany)

Thomas Thieme

BTL Bio-Test Lab GmbH Sagerheide, Birkenallee 19, 18184 Sagerheide, Germany (Germany)

Abstract

Protoplast fusion was used to produce more than 500 symmetric interspecific somatic hybrids between wild Solanum species, which belong to the series Pinnatisecta, Etuberosa and S. tuberosum L. cultivars or potato breeding clones. The used genebank accessions of S. cardiophyllum and S. tarnii were resistant to Phytophthora infestans, while the accessions of S. cardiophyllum, S. tarnii, as well as of S. etuberosum, were also highly resistant to PVY (strains: PVYO, PVYN, PVYNTN, PVYC, PVYN Wilga). In most fusion combinations vigorous and genetically stable hybrid material has been selected. A number of interspecific somatic hybrids were fertile and could be backcrossed with cultivated potato. The use of detached leaf and tuber tests and mechanical inoculation, grafting and virus transmission by vectors, revealed that several somatic hybrids and backcross (BC) clones were resistant to foliage and tuber blight, as well as to PVY.

Keywords:

Phytophthora infestans, protoplast fusion, PVY, resistance, wild Solanum species