Background

Can you imagine a world without bananas? The banana fruits that we enjoy here in Europe is the Cavendish cultivar (Figure 1). Today this banana is the main export banana worldwide but back in the 1950s the banana export was depended on the Gros Michel cultivar. However, this species was largely eradicated by the race 1 strain of Panama disease that is caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc) a soil-borne fungus [1, 2]. Back in the 1950s 40,000 ha of banana plantations became unproductive for banana production in a period of just 50 years [3]. As commercially grown bananas are largely sterile clones with a triploid genome, traditional breeding techniques have proven inadequate to develop resistant cultivars [4].

Back in the 1950s the resistant Cavendish cultivar was identified just in time, replacing Gros Michel as the primary banana species for export [1]. In 1992 a new variant of Foc, tropical race 4 (TR4) was discovered in Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia in Cavendish plantations. Levels have since been seen to rise and to spread throughout the world [5] (Figure 2). In 2013 the presence of race 4 was announced in Jordan, leaving only 20% of the Jordan Valley production area disease free. The biggest banana exporting counties located in Latin America, the Caribbean or West Africa are yet to be affected by this destructive disease but the rapid expansion draws a grim picture for the future of the banana [2, 6].

Further spread of tropical race 4 will have devastating effects for Cavendish plantations, and other cultivars, including many cooking and dessert bananas. Considering the high susceptibility of several banana cultivars to this almost uncontrollable disease, it has been estimated that 80% of the worldwide production is threatened [1]. The iGEM team Wageningen 2014 aims to prevent a repetition of the devastating effects that race 1 had in the 1950s and to introduce a system into agriculture that will ensure food safety. This system is called BananaGuard.

Why do we need a system like BananaGuard to protect our crops? In modern agriculture often chemicals such as fungicides can be used for crop protection but not in this case. Foc is a soil-borne fungus forming fungicide resistant, thick-walled chlamydospores that can survive in the soil for decades. This causes above ground application of fungicides to be ineffective. The fungus secretes phytotoxins, including fusaric acid, that are able to diminish the vitality of plant cells enabling colonization of the plant by Foc. Foc enters the vascular system through the roots and causes wilting and discoloration by vessel plugging and eventually the plant will dye [7] (Figure 3).

References

1. Ploetz, RC. (2005) Panama disease, an old nemesis rears its ugly head: part 1, the beginnings of the banana export trades. Plant Health Prog. doi, 10, 1094.
2. Ploetz, RC. (2006) Panama disease, an old nemesis rears its ugly head: part 2, the cavendish era and beyond. Plant Health Progress
3. Stover RH (1972) Banana, Plantain and Abaca Diseases. Wallingford, UK: CAB International, 316 pp
4. Ortiz, R., Ferris, RSB., & Vuylsteke, DR. (1995). Banana and plantain breeding. In Bananas and plantains (pp. 110-146). Springer Netherlands.
5. Ploetz, RC. (1994) Panama disease: Return of the first banana menace." International Journal of Pest Management 40(4): 326-336.
6. García-Bastidas F., Ordóñez, N., Konkol, J., Al-Qasim, M., Naser, Z., Abdelwali, M., Kema, G. H. J. (2014). First report of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Tropical Race 4 associated with Panama disease of banana outside southeast Asia. Plant Disease, 98(5), 694-694.
7. Dong, X., Ling, N., Wang, M., Shen, Q., & Guo, S. (2012). Fusaric acid is a crucial factor in the disturbance of leaf water imbalance in Fusarium-infected banana plants. Plant Physiology and Biochemistry, 60, 171-179.