Survival of Bemisia tabaci and activity of plant defense-related enzymes in genotypes of Capsicum annuum L.

Abstract

The whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius, 1889) is a major plant pest of horticultural crops from the families Solanaceae, Fabaceae and Cucurbitaceae in Neotropical areas. The exploration of host plant resistance and their biochemical mechanisms offers an excellent alternative to better understand factors affecting the interaction between phytophagous insect and host plant. We evaluated the survival of B. tabaci in landrace genotypes of Capsicum annuum L., and the activity of plant defense-related enzymes (chitinase, polyphenoloxidase, and peroxidase). The landrace genotypes Amaxito, Tabaquero, and Simojovel showed resistance to B. tabaci, as we observed more than 50% nymphal mortality, while in the commercial susceptible genotype Jalapeño mortality of B. tabaci nymphs was not higher than 20%. The activities of plant defense-related enzymes were significantly different among pepper genotypes (P < 0.05). Basal activities of chitinase, polyphenoloxidase and peroxidase were significantly lower or equal in landrace genotypes than that of the commercial genotype Jalapeño. The activity of plant enzymes was differential among pepper genotypes (P < 0.05). For example, the activity of chitinase enzyme generally was higher in non-infested plants with B. tabaci than those infested. Instead polyphenoloxidase ('Amaxito' and 'Simojovel') and peroxidase enzymes activities ('Tabaquero') increased in infested plants (P < 0.05). We conclude that basal activities of plant defense-related enzymes could be act through other mechanism plant induction, since plant defense-related enzymes showed a different induction response to B. tabaci. We underlined the role of polyphenoloxidase as plant defense in the pepper genotype Simojovel related to B. tabaci.

Expression analysis of the polyphenol oxidase gene in response to signaling molecules, herbivory and wounding in antisense transgenic tobacco plants

“…Ye et al (2012) studied that phloem-feeding herbivorous insects can trigger transcript accumulation of PPO and POD genes that deter further insect damage in rice. Recently, induction of PPO activity was found in whitefly herbivory in wild-type tobacco plants that can be correlated with NtPPO regulation of the present results (Zhao et al 2015) and PPO activity was recorded to be higher in whitefly-infested pepper genotypes than in non-infested genotypes (Latournerie-Moreno et al 2015). Earlier, PPO expression was found to be reduced in cotton by silencing of the PPO gene in response to beet armyworm, which implicated PPO as a component of defensive system against insects (Bhonwong et al 2009).…”

Screening chilli genotypes for whitefly (<em>Bemisia tabaci </em>Genn.) resistance: A vector for chilli leaf curl virus

“…Leaf colour: A total of three matured leaves were selected randomly from each genotype and scored using RHS colour chart (The Royal Horticultural Society, Fifth edition, 2007) and scoring was done according to the colour intensity (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20).…”

“…Similarly Firdaus et al (2011) [5] reported that C. annuum accessions showed highly resistant reaction in no-choice and free choice tests. Genotypes such as Chawa, Blanco, Maax and X'catic were found less susceptible to B. tabaci (Ballina-Gomez et al, 2013) [8] and Amaxito, Tabaquero, and Simojovel showed resistance to whitefly (Latournerie-Moreno et al, 2015) [9] . Genotypes IAC-1544, IAC-1545 and IAC-1579 showed antibiosis mechanisms for whitefly (Pantoja et al, 2017) [10] and the genotypes CA 9, CA28 and ACC 05 have displayed strong antiemetic and antibiotic effect against B. tabaci (Jeevanandham et al, 2018) [11] can be good source of resistance.…”

RESISTANCE OF Capsicum annuum GENOTYPES TO Bemisia tabaci AND INFLUENCE OF PLANT LEAF TRAITS

“…Resistance to B. tabaci in landrace, semi-wild and commercial genotypes has been evaluated in various vegetable crop species, such as soybean (Glycine max) (Cruz and Baldin, 2017), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) (Oriani et al, 2011;Rakha et al, 2017), eggplant (Solanum melongena) (Hasanuzzaman et al, 2016), melon (Cucumis melo) (McCreight et al, 2017), cassava (Manihot esculenta) (Mwila et al, 2017) and pepper (Capsicum annuum) (Ballina-Gomez et al, 2013;Firdaus et al, 2011;Jeevanandham et al, 2018). In genotypes of C. annuum different degrees of resistance to B. tabaci have been observed (Ballina-Gomez et al, 2013;Firdaus et al, 2011;Latournerie-Moreno et al, 2015). The wide genetic variation of C. annuum offers an opportunity to explore host plant resistance and to study the plant traits that influence such resistance.…”