Candidate Gene Identification with SNP Marker-Based Fine Mapping of Anthracnose Resistance Gene Co-4 in Common Bean

Anthracnose, caused by Colletotrichum lindemuthianum, is an important fungal disease of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Alleles at the Co-4 locus confer resistance to a number of races of C. lindemuthianum. A population of 94 F4:5 recombinant inbred lines of a cross between resistant black bean genotype B09197 and susceptible navy bean cultivar Nautica was used to identify markers associated with resistance in bean chromosome 8 (Pv08) where Co-4 is localized. Three SCAR markers with known linkage to Co-4 and a panel of single nucleotide markers were used for genotyping. A refined physical region on Pv08 with significant association with anthracnose resistance identified by markers was used in BLAST searches with the genomic sequence of common bean accession G19833. Thirty two unique annotated candidate genes were identified that spanned a physical region of 936.46 kb. A majority of the annotated genes identified had functional similarity to leucine rich repeats/receptor like kinase domains. Three annotated genes had similarity to 1, 3-β-glucanase domains. There were sequence similarities between some of the annotated genes found in the study and the genes associated with phosphoinositide-specific phosphilipases C associated with Co-x and the COK-4 loci found in previous studies. It is possible that the Co-4 locus is structured as a group of genes with functional domains dominated by protein tyrosine kinase along with leucine rich repeats/nucleotide binding site, phosphilipases C as well as β-glucanases.