The selected accessions possess valuable resistances to various fungal pathogens including PM (BH and S) [ 18], DM (BH and HN) [ 19] and anthracnose (BH, HN and S) [ 20].
Further, this potentially valuable antibiotic resistance research could help patient care teams stem a grim future where we experience a regression in health and life spans due to no longer having the ability to treat currently curable diseases.
The new markers should simplify the introgression of the valuable blast resistance associated with the complex Pi-k locus into rice cultivars.
Molecular markers amenable to high through put screening will be useful for selecting the recombinant genotypes with cis linkage between Xar1 and other valuable pathogen resistance loci.
The only Allium relative known to readily produce fertile hybrids with onion is A. roylei[ 15], which has been used to develop an interspecific map [ 16] and backcross progenies with valuable disease resistance [ 17, 18].
No functional R gene has yet been identified in tomato from this rapidly evolving cluster, but it can be speculated that some alleles of this locus might encode valuable disease resistance.
Perhaps, instead of moving a valuable trait like resistance to cold from a fish to a plant, genetic engineers could achieve the same result by goading the plant into a mutation that activates genes for cold tolerance already present in its DNA.
Moreover, the derived new monogenic lines can be freely distributed for field tests in different countries, providing valuable materials for resistance spectrum/frequency analysis of novel Pi2/9 alleles against rice blast under different environments.
At the time of its release, IRRI (1986) listed the valuable traits as resistance to brown planthopper (BPH) biotypes 1 and 3, green leafhopper (GLH), white backed planthopper (WBPH), bacterial blight, grassy stunt virus; and moderate resistance to blast, BPH biotype 2, and stem borer.
It is, in Frank's words, a "life and limb-saving" practice and one that he suggests will only become more valuable as patients' resistance to antibiotics increases.
