The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) in collaboration with Toyota Motor Corporation, has developed a DNA marker useful to select sugarcane clones resistant to smut disease. This research result will make it possible to promote the efficient breeding of sugarcane varieties resistant to smut disease, a major disease of sugarcane.
Overview
In collaboration with Toyota Motor Corporation, NARO identified chromosomal regions involved in the resistance to smut disease, a major disease of sugarcane, and developed a DNA marker that enable efficient selection of smut disease resistance in sugarcane, which shows high polyploidy and has been difficult to develop DNA markers.
Smut disease is a major disease for sugarcane and found in most sugarcane-production areas in the world. As there is no effective fungicides against smut infected sugarcane, the use of resistant varieties is a major control practice. When breeding resistant varieties, it was necessary to select resistant clones by inoculation tests, which required more than 3 years for the propagation. Therefore, the development of DNA markers that enable efficient selection of smut disease resistance has been expected.
GRAS-Di Technology, the genomic analysis technology developed by Toyota Motor Corporation in 2016 paved the way for developing DNA markers in sugarcane. Therefore, NARO set out to develop DNA markers for smut disease resistance in collaboration with Toyota Motor Corporation. A linkage map was developed for 'Yaenoushie' which is a highly smut disease resistant variety for forage use, and the genetic analysis of smut disease resistance revealed that the genetic regions involved in the resistance were in the linkage group 8. Furthermore, we developed a DNA marker in this genetic region which enable to select the smut disease resistant clones.
By using this DNA marker, it will be possible to promote the efficient breeding of sugarcane varieties resistant to smut disease.
Relevant information
Patent: JP 2020-065540
For Inquiries
Contact: http://www.naro.go.jp/english/inquiry/index.html
Published paper
Umeda M. et al. (2021) Detection of a major QTL related to smut disease resistance inherited from a Japanese wild sugarcane using GRAS-Di technology. Breeding Science 71(3) :365-374.
URL: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsbbs/71/3/71_20137/_article/-char/en
