Fungal and oomycetes pathogens are the major phytopathological problem in grapes cultivation and their control is mainly addressed by performing repeated fungicide treatments. Post-transcriptional gene silencing driven by the mechanism of RNA interference (RNAi) represents a powerful alternative, that can be employed to reduce the virulence of the pathogen. Considering modern viticulture, which is based on the cultivation of grapevine cultivars grafted onto hybrid Vitis rootstocks, the opportunity of having rootstocks capable of producing active long or small dsRNAs targeting fungal RNAs could have important implications as new defense strategies. The generation of grapevine plants expressing hairpin gene constructs aiming at the downregulation of Botrytis cinerea Dicer-like genes 1 and 2 has been optimized in the Thompson Seedless cultivar. The plants composed by a combination of different independent transformed lines used as rootstock down to Wild-type scions have been demonstrated to show a major tolerance to grey mold in detached leaves experiments. Moreover, we are monitoring the presence of specific dsRNA in non-transgenic leaves, sampled in different developmental stages. Although much remains to be elucidated about the trans-grafting technique, molecular and pathogen resistance analyses could indicate whether dsRNA is transferred from the producer HIGS rootstock to the combined non-transgenic scion.
Effect of Rootstock expressing hairpin RNA in conferring fungal resistance in Vitis vinifera
Barbara Molesini;Michela Cecchin;Tiziana Pandolfini;
2023-01-01
Abstract
Fungal and oomycetes pathogens are the major phytopathological problem in grapes cultivation and their control is mainly addressed by performing repeated fungicide treatments. Post-transcriptional gene silencing driven by the mechanism of RNA interference (RNAi) represents a powerful alternative, that can be employed to reduce the virulence of the pathogen. Considering modern viticulture, which is based on the cultivation of grapevine cultivars grafted onto hybrid Vitis rootstocks, the opportunity of having rootstocks capable of producing active long or small dsRNAs targeting fungal RNAs could have important implications as new defense strategies. The generation of grapevine plants expressing hairpin gene constructs aiming at the downregulation of Botrytis cinerea Dicer-like genes 1 and 2 has been optimized in the Thompson Seedless cultivar. The plants composed by a combination of different independent transformed lines used as rootstock down to Wild-type scions have been demonstrated to show a major tolerance to grey mold in detached leaves experiments. Moreover, we are monitoring the presence of specific dsRNA in non-transgenic leaves, sampled in different developmental stages. Although much remains to be elucidated about the trans-grafting technique, molecular and pathogen resistance analyses could indicate whether dsRNA is transferred from the producer HIGS rootstock to the combined non-transgenic scion.
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
