Contribution to the diversity of soybean germplasm withinsights on pathogenicity factors during the interaction with Botrytis cinerea

Abstract

Soybean (Glycine max) is a specie that has fundamental importance to the Brazilian economy and the production area has been largely increased during the past few decades. The importation of such commodity represents a large share of the trade balance, and its uses are spreaded for several industrial segments. In this study, two distincts aspects were approached related to this species, the plant-pathogen interaction using a necrotrophic fungi (Botrytis cinerea ) and the genetic diversity in a group of commonly used soybean genotypes. The plant pathogen interaction study was done to reach a better understanding of the effect of soybean domestication on the pathogen virulence. The genetic diversity evaluation had as a main goal determine the range of the genetic base in a soybean breeding set. The plant pathogen interaction study was performed using a detached leaves assay with12 genotypes from the NAM Population Project and 98 isolates of B. cinerea. In this assay, significant variability for lesion size was found between domestication groups. Futhermore, pathogen genome regions associated with virulence were detected. The genetic diversity was done with 35 SSR markers (Simple sequence repeat) with 77 soybean genotypes. Overall, the germplasm showed low genetic diversity what represents a obstacle to the progression of selection gains through breeding.