Verticillium dahliae is a particularly notorious vascular wilt pathogen of tomato and poses a reoccurring challenge to crop protection as limited qualitative resistance is available. Therefore, alternative approaches for crop protection are pursued. One such strategy is the impairment of disease susceptibility (S) genes, which are plant genes targeted by pathogens to promote disease development. In Arabidopsis and cotton, the Walls Are Thin 1 (WAT1) gene has shown to be a S gene for V. dahliae. In this study, we identified the tomato WAT1 homolog Solyc04g080940 (SlWAT1). Transient and stable silencing of SlWAT1, based on virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) and RNAi, respectively, did not consistently lead to reduced V. dahliae susceptibility in tomato. However, CRISPR-Cas9 tomato mutant lines carrying targeted deletions in SlWAT1 showed significantly enhanced resistance to V. dahliae, and furthermore also to Verticillium albo-atrum and Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici (Fol). Thus, disabling the tomato WAT1 gene resulted in broad-spectrum resistance to various vascular pathogens in tomato. Unfortunately these tomato CRISPR mutant lines suffered from severe growth defects. In order to overcome the pleiotropic effect caused by the impairment of the tomato WAT1 gene, future efforts should be devoted to identifying tomato SlWAT1 mutant alleles that do not negatively impact tomato growth and development.

大丽轮枝菌是一种特别臭名昭著的番茄维管枯萎病病原体，由于可用的定性抗性有限，因此对作物保护提出了反复出现的挑战。因此，正在寻求替代的作物保护方法。一种这样的策略是疾病易感性的损害（秒) 基因，它们是病原体靶向促进疾病发展的植物基因。在拟南芥和棉花中，墙很薄 1 (WAT1) 基因已被证明是 秒 基因 大丽花. 在这项研究中，我们确定了番茄WAT1 同系物 Solyc04g080940 (SlWAT1）。瞬态和稳定的沉默SlWAT1，分别基于病毒诱导的基因沉默 (VIGS) 和 RNAi，并没有始终如一地导致减少 大丽花番茄的敏感性。然而，CRISPR-Cas9 番茄突变系在SlWAT1 显示出显着增强的抗性 大丽花，此外还要 黄萎病菌 和 尖孢镰刀菌F。sp.番茄酱 (福尔）。因此，禁用番茄WAT1基因导致番茄对各种血管病原体的广谱抗性。不幸的是，这些番茄 CRISPR 突变系存在严重的生长缺陷。为了克服番茄的损伤引起的多效性WAT1 基因，未来应致力于鉴定番茄 SlWAT1 不对番茄生长和发育产生负面影响的突变等位基因。