clubroot

Identifying proteins critical to clubroot disease in canola

Clubroot has rapidly emerged as one of the most important diseases to threaten Canadian canola productivity in recent years, and efforts to improve understanding of the mechanisms that mediate plant host resistance (and susceptibility) to this pathogen are critical to protect Canadian canola. In a project funded by the Western Grain Research Foundation and the Canola Council of Canada, we are identifying effector proteins secreted by the protist pathogen Plasmodiophora brassicae during clubroot disease in infected Arabidopsis and canola. We are also using proteomics to identify host proteins that contribute to disease resistance in clubroot-resistant canola. Our goal is to provide knowledge that may be exploited to accelerate both traditional breeding and transgenic approaches of enhancing clubroot-resistant germplasms as a means of protecting the valuable Canadian canola industry. This project is a collaborative effort with Chris Todd, Peta Bonham-Smith and Yangdou-Wei of the University of Saskatchewan, with support from Edel Pérez-López at Université Laval.