Plant Science 160 (2001) 363 – 364
Book review
www.elsevier.com/locate/plantsci
Genetics and breeding for crop quality and resis-tance, Edited By G.T. Scarascia Mugnozza, E. Porceddu and M.A Pagnotta, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. ISBN 0792358449; NLG 345.00, US$ 207.00, GB£ 121.00
Genetics and Breeding for Crop Quality and Resistance is the proceedings of the XV Eucarpia Congress which took place in Italy September 1998. It is split into six main sections which cover breeding for resistance to fungi, bacteria, insects, nematodes, viruses and crop quality. Each section starts with a review paper from the key-note speaker and is followed by a number of short papers from oral presentations. A broad range of crops and good mixture of conventional breeding, marker assisted breeding and biotechnological ap-proaches are included, although the papers are of mixed quality.
Resistance to fungi makes an excellent start with a review of the avirulence and pathogenicity genes that have been found to be involved in the model tomato-Cladosporium ful6um host-pathogen
sys-tem. This includes a reminder that biology’s mys-teries are not easily unravelled; cloned resistances and avirulences do not directly interact and there-fore defy the simplest interpretation of Flor’s gene for gene hypothesis. Highlights from the short papers describe improvements to resistance that have been enabled through biotechnology; the suc-cessful use of the pathogen-related-protein os-motin to control fungal diseases in tomato and the use of ribosomal-inactivating protein b-32 which, in addition to controlling fungal disease in to-bacco, shows promise as a medicinal product in controlling AIDS. A review paper from scientists at IITA in Uganda on breeding for fungal resis-tance in banana deserves special attention for be-ing well written and comprehensive.
Resistance to bacteria begins with an overview of breeding for resistance to bacterial diseases in
tomato and is followed by two biotechnology suc-cess stories on controlling bacteria using defensins in fruit trees and glucose oxidase in tomato. A fascinating (short paper) review describes the im-portance of nitric oxide signalling in the disease response and draws parallels with mammalian im-mune systems. ‘Resistance to insects’ contains an excellent review on the structure and genomic distribution of alpha-amylase/trypsin inhibitors in cereals and is followed by short papers on the use of neuropeptides and hormones to control insects in tobacco and the use of thaumatin to improve fruit taste (the connection with resistance to in-sects being that thaumatins also have insecticidal properties).
The nematode section contains a good overview of the work carried out in potato in which the first nematode resistance genes were successfully cloned. ‘Resistance to viruses’ describes the viral and non-viral genes that have been utilised in biotechnology as well as the benefits and risks of trangenics.
Breeding for quality is the largest section and begins with an excellent description of the bio-chemistry of LOX, an enzyme involved in defense and flavour. It was good to see that taste and aroma (organoleptic quality) are making a small come-back as breeding criteria; one paper covered mapping organoleptic quality in the long-neglected tomato, and one, the manipulation of ethylene synthesis to improve shelf life in melon while maintaining taste. A somewhat poignant reminder of the times we live in came from a breeding program in Belarus, where vegetable varieties are being selected for their ability to accumulate lower than average levels of heavy metals, nitrates and radionucleotides arising from pollution and nu-clear power station leaks.
Proceedings often provide the opportunity to publish small pieces of work before a complete story can be sold to a journal, and as such can
Book re6iew
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contain up-to-the-minute information. Unfortu-nately, two years after the event, this proceedings can not deliver on this point, although some of the papers do contain some nice tidbits of the kind that do not ever make it into journal papers. The broad range of crops and traits that are covered result in a book that most specialists will not want to read from cover to cover, but it does produce a good overview of the topics that are relevant to
plant breeding today. It is a book from which individual readers will certainly be able to cherry pick a number of papers of relevance and interest.
13 September 2000 Elizabeth Jones
Plant Biotechnology Centre,
Agriculture Victoria,
Bundoora Australia
E-mail: liz.jones@nre.vic.gov.au
