Seminarios IHSM La Mayora - Miguel Ángel Aranda (CEBAS, Murcia)
“Loss-of-susceptibility to pepino mosaic virus in tomato” Abstract The identification of sources of resistance to plant viruses is traditionally achieved by screening germplasm belonging to the target species and/or close relatives. This approach might be unsuccessful in occasions, as appears to be the case for pepino mosaic virus (PepMV) in tomato. PepMV affects tomato crops worldwide, causing a disease with serious economic repercussions. The existence of potential sources of natural resistance to PepMV has been described, but these seem to be partial, to be controlled by complex genetics and/or to be specific to the viral strain. We have addressed alternative strategies for the development of varieties resistant to PepMV, including the screening of an EMS mutagenized collection of tomato lines, and the targeting of genes encoding potential susceptibility factors identified through molecular approaches. In my talk I will describe our work following these two strategies, which have led to the identification of a handful of tomato genes with both proviral and antiviral functions. Resumé Miguel A. Aranda (Madrid, Spain, 02/23/1965) graduated from Polytechnics University of Madrid in 1989, and obtained his PhD degree in Plant Pathology in 1995. From 1995 to 1998 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the John Innes Center (JIC, Norwich, UK). In 1999, he joined CSIC (Spain) as tenured scientist, moving to Murcia (Spain) in 2002, where he leads the CEBAS-CSIC Plant Virology research group. He has carried out sabbatical stays at JIC (3 months in 2008), UC Berkeley (12 months in 2011-2012) and UC Davis (6 months in 2017). He is currently a Research Professor at CEBAS-CSIC and founder and shareholder of the technology-based company Abiopep S.L. (www.abiopep.com). He is Senior Editor for the Plant-Pathogen Interaction area of Annals of Applied Biology and for the Virology area of Molecular Plant Pathology. His main line of research deals with genetic resistance to plant viruses.
