Identification and Characterisation of Candidate Blackleg Resistance Genes in Brassica napus

A thorough understanding of the relationships between plants and pathogens is essential if we are to continue to meet the agricultural needs of the world’s growing population.  The identification of genes underlying important quantitative trait loci (QTL) is extremely challenging in complex genomes such as Brassica napus (canola, oilseed rape or rapeseed).  However, recent advances in next generation sequencing (NGS) enable much quicker identification of candidate genes for traits of interest. Here we demonstrate this with the identification of candidate disease resistance genes from Brassica napus for its most devastating fungal pathogen, Leptosphaeria maculans (blackleg fungus).  These two species are locked in an evolutionary arms-race whereby a gene for gene interaction confers either resistance or susceptibility in the plant depending on the genotype of the plant and pathogen. Preliminary analysis of the complete genome sequence of the diploid progenitor of B. napus: B. rapa, identified numerous candidate CC-NBS-LRR and TIR-NBS-LRR domain protein encoding genes, several of which were clustered around a region syntenic with major loci for blackleg resistance in B. napus.  Molecular analyses of the candidate genes will be presented.