Plant-­parasitic nematodes (PPN) infect nearly all crops in all temperate and tropical areas and cause estimated losses of several billion € per year. Root-­knot (Meloidogyne spp.) and cyst forming nematodes (Heterodera spp. and Globodera spp.) are among the most damaging plant pathogens worldwide. They establish an intimate interaction with their hosts inducing specific feeding sites in the roots. Nematicides were the most important means of nematodes control, but since they threatened environment and human health they were banned (EC directive 2007/619/EC) and have to be replaced by novel control measures  to meet the demands of consumers for affordable and safe food produced in a healthy environment. Natural plant resistance is an available and safe option, but strongly limited by the number of available genotypes and the occurrence of resistance breaking nematode populations. Furthermore, climate change positively regulates the nematode infection capacity inducing more intense infestations and greater risks to European agriculture. Therefore, novel targets are needed  to develop new strategies to control PPN.

The NESTOR project aims at combining the efforts of 5 public research labs and 4 private companies to (i) discover and characterize  Arabidopsis genes which are essential for disease susceptibility towards RKN and BCN and (ii) to discover  target sequences in crops based on a small set of genes for which an important role in feeding cell development has been shown (in this and earlier studies) to generate novel resistance  sources in crop plants. Orthologs of Arabidopis genes will be identified in tomato, cucumber, and sugar beet. New alleles will be generated by TILLING or Eco TILLING and tested for enhanced nematode resistance. Those with an increased resistance without effecting plant development will represent our goal. Three labs with competences in plant nematode interactions for RKN and BCN will collaborate with two labs with competence and resources on collections of crop species and four private breeding companies. The nematology labs will first define plant susceptibility  genes of interest based on microarrays results and Arabidopsis mutant phenotyping. Labs with TILLING platforms will identify mutant lines in crops, while private companies will identify orthologues of Arabidopsis susceptibility genes in crop plant candidates and will genotype and phenotype these plants.

This project will increase our knowledge on plant-­pathogen interaction and will generate resistance towards a large spectrum nematode species on crop plants. The results of the project will be released to the public domain in the form of scientific publications such as papers, posters, and oral presentations.