Abstract
THE primary event that determines whether or not a plant becomes diseased is a mutual recognition which brings the plant into contact with the pathogen. Flor1 developed the gene-for-gene theory from his studies of the relationship between flax and rust. This theory implies that the genes in the plant that condition the reaction can be identified only by their interaction with specific races of the pathogen, and the genes in the pathogen that condition pathogenicity can be identified only by their interaction with a specific cultivar of the plant. Allen2 reported that nucleic acid or protein was involved in the resistance of the plant to the pathogen. Ledoux et al.3 found that labelled DNA from bacteria could be incorporated into barley roots and become combined with the DNA in the nuclei of the plant cells. Thus DNA may have a role in the recognition of the plant by the pathogen. We have obtained support for this notion. We painted potato midribs and tubers with DNA fractions4 from different potato cultivars and species of Solanaceae, and found that their susceptibility to Phytophthora infestans was affected.
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YAMAMOTO, M., MATSUO, K. Involvement of DNA in resistance of potatoes to invasion by Phytophthora infestans. Nature 259, 63–64 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/259063a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/259063a0
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