PRJNA449231
Mapping of tomato Frl locus
Modern plant breeding heavily relies on the use of molecular markers. In recent years, next generation sequencing (NGS) emerged as a powerful technology to discover DNA sequence polymorphisms and generate molecular markers very rapidly and cost-effectively, accelerating the plant breeding programmes. A single dominant locus, Frl, in tomato provides resistance to the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici (FORL), causative agent of Fusarium crown and root rot. In this study, we describe the generation of molecular markers associated with the Frl locus. An F2 mapping population between a FORL resistant and a susceptible cultivar was generated. NGS technology was then used to sequence the genome of a susceptible and a resistant parent as well the genomes of bulked resistant and susceptible F2 lines. We zoomed into the Frl locus and mapped the locus to a 900kb interval on chromosome 9. Polymorphic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the interval were identified and markers co-segregating with the resistant phenotype were generated. Some of these markers were tested successfully with commercial tomato varieties indicating that they can be used for marker assisted selection in large-scale breeding programmes.