Genetic resistances provide an efficient control of crop diseases but are limited by pathogen adaptation.In pepper, the durability of the pvr23 allele, conferring resistance to Potato virus Y (PVY), was demonstrated todepend on the plant genetic background. The aim of my PhD thesis was to characterize the host genetic factorsaffecting the durability of the major resistance gene pvr23 and to answer to the following question s: (i) What istheir action on the evolution of the viral population? (ii) Is there identity between the QTLs (quantitative traitloci) controlling the partial resistance and the QTLs affecting the durability of pvr23? (iii) Are these genetic factorswidespread among the genetic resources of pepper? Various experiments including resistance testing,experimental evolution and competition between various PVY variants, enabled to show that the genetic factorsaffecting the durability of pvr23 acted in: (i) decreasing the viral accumulation, (ii) decreasing the probability ofacquisition of resistance breaking (RB) mutations by PVY and (iii) slowing down the selection of RB variants. QTLdetection and mapping of genetic factors affecting the frequency of pvr23 RB showed that four loci actingadditively and in epistatic interactions explained together 70% of the variance of pvr23 breakdown frequency.Comparative mapping between these QTLs and QTLs affecting partial resistance showed that three of the fourQTLs controlling the frequency of pvr23 RB are also involved in quantitative resistance, suggesting that QTLs forquantitative resistance have a pleiotropic effect on the durability of the major resistance gene. Analysis of acollection of 20 pepper accessions, carrying pvr23 or pvr24 (allele closely related to pvr23) in various geneticbackgrounds, showed that genetic backgrounds favorable to the durability of the pvr2-mediated resistance arewidespread in the genetic resources of pepper. These results highlight that the durability of a major resistancegene can be strongly increased when associated with genetic factors decreasing the pathogen multiplication.Moreover, the frequency of a major gene RB is a highly heritable trait and QTLs detection for this trait isachievable. The direct selection for such QTLs opens new prospects to preserve the durability of major resistancegenes used by breeders.
