Developing universally transferrable markers for commercial disease resistance breeding

Modern molecular technologies enable the rapid identification of functional disease resistance genes against major pests and diseases. Informed disease resistance breeding requires tools and markers that enable the efficient tracking of these resistance genes in progenies. By deploying diagnostic resistance gene enrichment sequencing (dReseq) on over hundred popular potato cultivars, we developed a universally transferrable type of molecular marker (UTM) for all major functional resistance genes. These markers have proven to be highly diagnostic and transferable across diverse potato germplasms.  

The UTM marker is the first of its kind and is being successfully applied in the potato breeding programs at James Hutton Limited.