Molecular Pathogens, 2025, Vol.16, No.1, 36-44 http://microbescipublisher.com/index.php/mp 40 6 Biotechnological Approaches 6.1 Genetic transformation in potatoes Genetic transformation is a commonly used method to make potatoes more resistant to disease. The core of this method is to “introduce” disease-resistant genes into potato varieties. Common practices include somatic hybridization and recombinant DNA techniques. These techniques can allow potatoes to gain resistance to some diseases, such as late blight, which is the most serious one. This disease is caused by a pathogen called Phytophthora pathogen, which poses great threat to potato cultivation worldwide (Figure 2) (Uhrig et al., 1992; Berindean et al., 2024). During the transformation process, scientists often use some molecular tools, such as MAS (label-assisted selection) and QRL (quantitative resistance sites). These methods can help quickly find and clone disease-resistant genes and then add them to potatoes, giving plants better disease-resistant (Solomon-Blackburn and Barker, 2001; Berindean et al., 2024). In addition, another method is to make genetically modified potatoes. For example, the United States has developed genetically modified varieties that can resist viruses, which also shows that this approach is promising (Solomon-Blackburn and Barker, 2001). Figure 2 Symptoms of late blight disease (Adopted from Berindean et al., 2024) Image caption: The typical symptoms of late blight: on the upper side of the leaf, an oily necrotic spot, surrounded by pale green (A); on the underside of the leaf: a white down is observed (B). This white down is the pathogens sporangiophres and sporanges (C). Stem and petioles could also be attacked (D1). Advanced disease is manifested by a blight of the leaves and possibly the whole plant (D2,D3). Photograph: A. Taoutaou (Adopted from Berindean et al., 2024) 6.2 RNA interference (RNAi) RNA interference (RNAi) is a novel biotechnology that is now also used in disease-resistant breeding of potatoes. It is especially suitable for anti-virus. RNAi itself is a natural defense mechanism in the plant body. It blocks RNA replication of viruses by producing something called small interfering RNA (siRNA) (Musta and Rakosy-Tican, 2015; Miroshnichenko et al., 2019). For example, scientists “designed the gene fragments of some viral shell proteins into hairpin structures” and then let plants express these fragments, which can activate the RNAi pathway. This approach has successfully made potatoes resistant to common viruses like PVX, PVY, and PVS (Hameed et al., 2017). The experimental results are also obvious: potatoes using RNAi are almost 100% resistant to these viruses (Hameed et al., 2017; Miroshnichenko et al., 2019). So this technology is very promising in antivirus. 6.3 Pathogen-responsive promoters Another more "smart" approach is to use pathogen-induced promoters. These promoters are specific DNA fragments that initiate the expression of resistance genes when the plant is attacked by pathogens. For example, some studies have used this promoter to combine RNAi technology to silen a translation initiation factor called
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