Identification of DNA markers of tobacco linked to bacterial wilt resistance

Bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum is one of the most destructive soil-borne diseases in the world. Breeding resistant commercial varieties of tobacco is difficult because most donor candidates' resistance is controlled by polygenes. In this paper, we demonstrate the identification of useful DNA markers for bacterial wilt-resistant tobacco breeding. One hundred and seventeen markers were identified by the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) method between W6, a burley variety with resistance originating from a Japanese domestic variety, Hatano, and Michinoku 1, a commercial burley wilt-susceptible variety, using 3,072 primer combinations. These markers were analyzed in 125 doubled haploid lines, derived from F(1) hybrids between W6 and Michinoku 1, and a linkage map consisting of ten linkage groups was drawn. The resistance phenotype of each of these lines was investigated on the basis of the average of disease severity obtained from field trials over two growing cycles. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis was performed on the marker phenotypes and the resistance phenotype of each line. One QTL for the bacterial wilt resistance of W6 and DNA markers associated with this QTL were identified on a linkage group consisting of 15 markers, 32 cM in length. This QTL explained more than 30% of the variance in resistance among these lines.