Can we harness disease resistance by association directly in the wild sea beet?

Yvanne, Hélène (2024) Can we harness disease resistance by association directly in the wild sea beet? Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Sugar beet (Beta vulgaris vulgaris), which contributes for 20% of the worldwide sugar production, is one of the most recently domesticated crops. It was domesticated from the wild sea beet, Beta vulgaris maritima, still growing on European coasts. The beet system is a model for maintaining a sustainable crop production in a scenario of human population growth and climate change. Crop wild relatives are now considered a source of traits to improve their domesticated counterparts, especially regarding disease resistance.

Construction of a sea beet pan-genome consisting of eleven sea beets from England, Denmark, France and Spain marks an improvement in both contiguity and completeness compared to published data.

These pan-genomic data, along with the whole-genome re-sequencing of hundreds of wild sea beets sampled mostly in England, facilitated a k-mer-based association study for beet rust resistance. Five candidate NLR loci are identified, among which one locus appears in distinct controlled inoculation trials involving different English rusts, as well as in naturally inoculated wild sampled material. This opens the door to the potential success of association genetic studies conducted on wild individuals in controlled conditions or even directly in their natural habitat.

Sea beet population structure is investigated on east (rich in sugar beet cultivation) and west coasts of England and highlights a higher genetic diversity in resistance genes than in nonresistance genes, particularly on the east coast. This suggests a potential impact of the presence of crops or their pathogens in this area. Moreover, the sea currents from Humberside towards East-Anglia could explain reduced northerly gene flow. Finally, measures of nucleotide diversity and differentiation at the five candidate NLR loci indicate that population genetic measures could be used to inform on the efficacy of candidate resistance genes.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
Depositing User:	James Tweddle
Date Deposited:	18 Feb 2025 15:43
Last Modified:	18 Feb 2025 15:43
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98540
DOI:

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