Table of Contents

PLANT RESEARCH NEWS

Stacking of Natural Resistance Genes against Late Blight in Potato Shows Great Promise, but also Presents a Regulatory Challenge
Godelieve Gheysen, Rene Custers and Richard G.F. Visser

The most devastating disease in potato cultivation throughout the world is late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans, a fungus-like micro-organism from the class of oomycetes. Late blight resistance (LBR) genes have been transferred from wild species into commercial potato varieties through conventional cross breeding activities. The big drawback of introducing single LBR genes by breeding is that the 10-40 years needed to obtain a good resistant variety is often annihilated in a few years due to mutations in the pathogen that cause loss of recognition. The combination of multiple, different LBR genes is a better strategy to protect potato against Phytophthora infection, but this is very difficult to achieve using conventional breeding.

Transforming Camelina sativa into an Industrially Useful Oilseed
Jose Aznar-Moreno and Timothy P. Durrett

The large quantities of fossil fuel consumed by society have raised concerns about contributions to greenhouse gas emission and the long-term availability of this non-renewable energy resource. In its replacement, plant oils represent a more sustainable source not only of fuel, but also as feedstocks for industrial chemistry. Within the plant kingdom there is a very large repertoire of unusual fatty acids present in seeds. A longstanding goal of researchers has been to metabolically engineer oil seed crops to produce unusual lipids. To this end, the isolation of enzymes from different plants and an increased understanding of metabolic fluxes in developing seeds have allowed the production of genetically engineered plants with moderate levels of unusual lipids.

Opportunity and Challenge of Genome Editing for Crop Improvement
Jeffrey D Wolt

Biotechnology crops expressing transgenic traits were planted on over 450 million acres in 2014. This rapid worldwide adoption should stand as a testament to the promise of modern biotechnology, but after nearly two decades of worldwide use these crops are an unending source of public controversy. Public questioning of transgenic crops has meant increased regulatory burdens and delays. The rapid pace of innovation in bioengineering is leading to a host of new breeding technologies that may offer renewed opportunities for biotechnology crop development. The emergence of tools for genome editing and their successful use in plant science is especially remarkable.