Rebecca Bart (she/her/hers)
Member, Principal Investigator
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
St Louis, MO, USA
ZJ Daniel Lin
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Kerrigan Gilbert
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
Sharon Wages
Extension Agent
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Hilo, Hawaii, United States
James C. Carrington
President/CEO
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Abstract
Pathogens rely on expression of host susceptibility (S) genes to promote infection and disease. Genome editing has been used to make changes to host DNA sequences and block access to S genes by pathogens. As DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification that affects gene expression, blocking access to S genes through targeted methylation could increase disease resistance, similar to gene editing strategies.This talk will cover recent advances using targeted genome and epigenome editing technologies to increase tolerance to important bacterial and viral diseases in the food security crop, cassava. In the first case, Xanthomonas phaseoli pv. manihotis, the causal agent of cassava bacterial blight (CBB), uses transcription activator-like20 (TAL20) to induce expression of the S gene MeSWEET10a. In the second case, we focus on a class of RNA viruses that cause cassava brown streak disease. The benefits and challenges of these technologies will be discussed along with insights for the future.