Sam’s Three Minute Thesis
A love/hate triangle in emerging potato diseases
Potato is the third most consumed crop in the world. Therefore, the success of potato crop production is crucial for global food security. Disease damage contributes to a significant portion and annual potato crop loss. Powdery scab disease in potato is caused by Spongospora subterranea f. sp. subterranea (Sss). Sss vectors potato mop-top virus (PMTV) that causes tuber necrosis. Both pathogens reduce the economic value of tubers and impede foreign trade due to the quarantine status of PMTV in some countries. While effective chemical or cultural control measures are not available for these pathogens, partial genetic resistance is present in some potato cultivars. The genetic basis of the resistance is currently unknown. The focus of our work is to identify the genes in each organism that contributes to the interaction. We would identify the regulatory genes involved in potato-Sss-PMTV interaction via system-level analysis of gene expression following pathogen infection. Then the candidate genes identified as potentially involved in the interaction will be functionally validated in potato plants using multiple gene editing techniques. Our ultimate goal is to identify genes or gene groups that can be modified in commercially favorable potato cultivars to develop genetic resistance to Sss and PMTV. Also, the resistant genes discovered from this study can be direct assets to breeding programs as molecular markers for resistant cultivar screening, contributing to Sss and PMTV control.
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Samodya is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Department of Plant Pathology. A native of Sri Lanka, she completed her bachelor’s degree at the University of Ruhuna Sri Lanka with a major in Botany. Following her undergraduate degree, she worked in the Division of Plant Pathology at the Sri Lanka Tea Research Institute as a research officer, where she was the lead scientist of a project investigating microbial contamination and aflatoxins in tea products. She joined WSU as a master’s student in the Department of Plant Pathology with a focus on exploring the efficiency of using two co-products of local industries, fly ash and biochar, to reduce soil acidity in wheat cultivation systems and the resultant impact on Cephalosporium stripe disease in wheat. Her current focus is understanding the genetic basis behind the interaction between the powdery scab and potato mop-top pathogens and their host potato plant, which ultimately would lead to the development of genetic resistance to these diseases.