ArchiGenet (2024-2025)

The fight against plant pathogens requires the identification of genetic resistances that are both effective and durable. To address the challenge of durability, it is crucial (i) to identify available sources of resistance (total resistance, partial resistance, tolerance), and (ii) to implement strategies for deploying these resistances in the field (variety mixtures, rotations) that generate adaptation costs for the pathogen, preventing its adaptation to all deployed resistances. Deciphering the genetic architecture of plant-pathogen interactions is essential for sustainable plant disease management. Genetic architecture encompasses the genes of both organisms encoding phenotypes of interest, including their number, location, and effects. While the rise of high-throughput sequencing now allows easy acquisition of genotypic data for both plants and pathogens, studies on the genetic architecture of plant-pathogen interactions are still rare. This project aims to characterize this genetic architecture for the first time in a pathosystem of agronomic interest, the melon - Watermelon mosaic virus. A first phase of methodological optimization will develop a reliable and high-throughput method for quantifying viral load. A second phase will focus on characterizing the genetic architecture using an innovative approach called experimental co-GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study).