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Article: Roche NimbleGen Arrays Help Unveil the Secrets of Insidious Potato Blight.
- Article from:
- Business Wire
- Article date:
- November 3, 2009
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MADISON, Wis. -- A large international team of researchers recently published the 240-megabase DNA sequence of Phytophthora infestans, a robust parasitic water mold responsible for the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, in Nature (1). Breeders have not been able to produce potato cultivars that remain resistant to this insidious blight, aptly named as the plant (phyto) destroyer (phthora). This fungal-like pathogen is an oomycete, an eukaryote related to algae and diatoms that is transferred by wind-borne spores that spread rapidly and germinate on wet leaves, killing entire fields of potatoes, tomatoes, and other plants within a few weeks. Conservative estimates of potato ...