here - First Legume Society Conference (LSC1)

Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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Molecular characterization of pea powdery mildew er1 resistance
Stefano Pavan 1 , Adalgisa Schiavulli 2 , Michela Appiano 1 , Angelo R Marcotrigiano 1 , Fabrizio Cillo 3 ,
Richard GF Visser 4 , Yuling Bai 4 , Concetta Lotti 2 , Luigi Ricciardi 1
1 Department of Soil, Plant and Food Science, Section of Genetics and Plant Breeding, University of Bari, Italy
2 Department of Agro-Environmental Science, Chemistry and Crop Protection, University of Foggia, Italy
3 National Research Council - Institute of Plant Virology, Bari, Italy
4 Laboratory of Plant Breeding, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
The powdery mildew disease affects several crops and is also one of the major threats for pea
(Pisum sativum L.) cultivation worldwide. The gene er1, first described over sixty years ago, is the
most used powdery mildew resistance source in pea breeding. We recently used an homologybased
cloning approach to demonstrate that, similarly to other recessive powdery mildew
resistance sources identifies in barley and tomato, er1 resistance is caused by loss-of-function
mutations of a homolog belonging to the MLO gene family, namely PsMLO1. Five different lossof-function
mutations in the PsMLO1 gene sequence have been characterized in pea germplasm,
and we exploited this information to develop new molecular markers suitable for er1 assisted
selection. These markers are built on polymorphisms directly responsible for the resistant
phenotype, and can therefore be referred to as functional markers. Taken together, they
overcome many limitations associated to previously reported er1-linked markers. In general, our
studies suggest the possibility to use reverse genetics approaches targeting MLO homologs to
introduce broad-spectrum resistance across crop species affected by the powdery mildew disease,
among which several cultivated legumes.
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