Enhanced resistance to the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea conferred by expression of a cecropin A gene in transgenic rice

Abstract

Cecropins are a family of antimicrobial peptides which constitute an important key component of the immune response in insects. Here, we demonstrate that transgenic rice Taken together, the results presented in this study suggest that the cecropin A gene when designed for retention of cecropin A into the endoplasmic reticulum, could be a useful candidate for protection of rice plants against the rice blast fungus M. grisea.

Acquired resistance to the rice blast in transgenic rice accumulating the antimicrobial peptide thanatin

“…Our findings indicate that thanatin, a -hairpin-type AMP, is useful and powerful tool with which to create a plant tolerant to blast disease as easily as that previously reported for other types of AMPs, such as Sarcotoxin IA, MsrA3, MsrA2, temporinA and cecropin B (Coca et al 2006;Mitsuhara et al 2000;Osusky et al 2004;Sharma et a.l 2000;Yevtushenko et al 2007). …”

“…To protect rice from a pathogen attack, a genetically engineered plant containing a disease-resistance gene is proposed as a tool for directional improvement. In the last decade, acquired resistance to plant disease caused by a various pathogens, including fungi and bacteria, can be achieved by the introduction of AMPs into transgenic plants (Coca et al 2006;Mitsuhara et al 2000;Osusky et al 2004;Sharma et al 2000;Yevtushenko et al 2007). Thanatin has a wide-ranging antimicrobial spectrum, which includes many kinds of bacteria and fungi (Fehlbaum et al 1996).…”

Antimicrobial peptides

“…125,126 Also, targeting the AMPs into endoplasmic reticulum instead of intercellular spaces dramatically drops the probability of infertility. 121 Moreover, expression of a cocktail of AMPs with different modes of action demotes the possibility of resistance depletion attributable to microbial escape. Notably, insects synthesize concurrently a continuum of low-molecular-mass inhibitors against microbial proteases in company with AMPs.…”

“…Undesirably, application of AMPs to engineer pathogen resistance in plants suffers from some limitations, namely species-and race-specificity of the peptides, 120 slight enhanced resistance, 106 induction of infertility, 121 and leakage of conferred resistance after a while due to resiliency of disease-causing microbes. 38 To alleviate these drawbacks as well as to increase the antimicrobial potency of existing peptides, several approaches have been proposed to follow.…”

Production of the biotechnologically relevant AFP from Aspergillus giganteus in the yeast Pichia pastoris

“…The general biological role of antimicrobial peptides and proteins in defense against challenging microbes is recognized and they are proposed as promising tools for the development of new antifungal therapies in medicine and agriculture [2][3][4]. Moreover, the transgenic expression of antimicrobial genes has been successfully used to improve resistance to fungal diseases in many plant species [5][6][7][8].…”