Necrotrophic effectors produced by fungal pathogens of legume crops

Trabajo presentado en el Second International Legume Society Conference "Legumes for a sustainable world" (ILS2), celebrado en Tróia (Portugal) del 11 al 14 de octubre de 2016.
Despite their importance for the agriculture and the environment, the production of food legumes is decreasing in most of the Mediterranean farming systems. A major cause for this is the low and irregular yield as a consequence of biotic and abiotic stresses. Necrotrophic fungi, including essentially Ascochyta and Botrytis species, are among the main biotic constraints. Both fungal genus are well known phytotoxins producers. These toxins, belonging to different classes of natural compounds, are frequently involved in the development of disease symptoms. In this communication the chemical and biological characterization of the necrotrophic effectors produced by Didymella pinodes and Botrytis fabae pathogens of pea and faba bean respectively, will be reported. Furthermore, the studies aimed to identify novel resistance sources in the respective hosts in sensitivity assays will be discussed, too.