Acylsugars in tomato leaflets confer resistance to the South American tomato pinworm, Tuta absoluta Meyr

Acylsugars present in the accession 'LA716' of Lycopersicon pennellii play an important role in the resistance to Tuta absoluta. This paper investigates the possible association between the resistance to T absoluta and the acylsugar contents in F2 and F2BC1 tomato plants derived from the interspecific crossing between L. esculentum 'TOM-584' and L pennellii 'LA716'. From the F2 population, four high acylsugars and one low acylsugars plants were selected and tested for Tuta absoluta resistance along with parental lines TOM-584 and LA-716, and with the checks TOM-600 (high 2-tridecanone line with resistance to T absoluta) and TOM-556 (low acylsugar line). The genotypes were tested under natural field infestation and were evaluated for overall plant damage, leaflet lesion type and percent of attacked leaflet. Four plants from F2BC1 [=Lycopersicon esculentum "TOM-584' x F-2)] were selected for high acylsugars and two for low acylsugars, and tested in greenhouse cages infested with T. absoluta. These genotypes were evaluated with the parental lines and the checks for oviposition ten days after infestation, and for leaflet lesion type and overall plant damage at four different dates. The F2 genotypes BPX-370Bpl#25, BPX-370Bpl#30 and BPX-370Bpl#79, the F2BC1 genotypes BPX-370B pl#30-380 and BPX-370B pl#30-271 and the wild accession LA716 had good levels of resistance to Tuta absoluta. The resistance level increased with longer exposition time to the acylsugars, both in the field and in the cage tests. Acylsugar contents seemed to be highly and negatively correlated with the traits related to the pinworm resistance.