Scientists have made a big breakthrough in understanding how potato blight spreads.
Research teams at Dundee and Aberdeen universities, the Scottish Crop Research Institute at Invergowrie, near Dundee, and Warwick HRI have discovered the genetic means used by blight to enter potato cells.
The breakthrough comes through work funded by the UK Government's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council into a disease that costs the agricultural industry £3billion a year globally to deal with.
Blight produces so-called effector proteins which go into potatoes and other crops to manipulate cell structure, defence mechanisms and the metabolism of the plants so it can take hold.
Up to now little has been known about the way in which these proteins work. But various scientific advances using genomics have allowed the scientists to identify more than 500 genes that are used by the effectors to infect a variety of plants, including tatties.
The research work has also found the genetic motif – RXLR – which is necessary for blight to enter plants.
Project leader Professor Paul Birch said: “What we have seen is an evolutionary arms race between a pathogen and its host and, so far, the pathogen has been winning.
“We are really excited by the discovery of RXLR. This has provided a signature to search for proteins that are delivered inside host cells, where they may be exposed to plant defence surveillance systems."
The scientists hope that their understanding of how effectors interact with cells in the potato plant will lead to novel strategies to control or prevent crop losses and environmental damage for a wide variety of plant diseases, not just potato blight.
The work should also help develop new plant varieties that are blight resistant.
The BBSRC's is providing £3.5million of funding to the research teams, as was revealed by the Press and Journal in April.