To identify and characterise whitefly salivary effectors that affect host resistance in order to identify novel bio-stimulants and/or targets for plant breeding.

The objectives are:

1. To identify whitefly salivary proteins (effectors) that turn a host-plant into a more suitable host.
2. To identify tomato proteins that interact with whitefly effectors and to determine their site of interaction.
3. To search for allelic variation and/or create mutations by mutagenesis within the interaction site of the S-gene thereby disturbing the interaction and creating resistance in tomato.