:
Oilseed brassicas stand as the second most valuable source of vegetable oil and the third
most traded one across the globe. However, the yield can be severely affected by infections caused by
phytopathogens. White rust is a major oomycete disease of oilseed brassicas resulting in up to 60%
yield loss globally. So far, success in the development of oomycete resistant Brassicas through conventional
breeding has been limited. Hence, there is an imperative need to blend conventional and
frontier biotechnological means to breed for improved crop protection and yield.
:
This review provides a deep insight into the white rust disease and explains the oomycete-plant molecular
events with special reference to Albugo candida describing the role of effector molecules, A.
candida secretome, and disease response mechanism along with nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat
receptor (NLR) signaling. Based on these facts, we further discussed the recent progress and future
scopes of genomic approaches to transfer white rust resistance in the susceptible varieties of
oilseed brassicas, while elucidating the role of resistance and susceptibility genes. Novel genomic
technologies have been widely used in crop sustainability by deploying resistance in the host. Enrichment
of NLR repertoire, over-expression of R genes, silencing of avirulent and disease susceptibility
genes through RNA interference and CRSPR-Cas are technologies which have been successfully applied
against pathogen-resistance mechanism. The article provides new insight into Albugo and Brassica
genomics which could be useful for producing high yielding and WR resistant oilseed cultivars
across the globe.