European Journal of Plant Pathology (2013) 135, 265-277

Selected publication you are invited to contribute to the discussion section (above tab)

Diqiu Liu, Xin He, Wenxian Li, Chaoyin Chen and Feng Ge (2013)
A β-1,3-glucanase gene expressed in fruit of Pyrus pyrifolia enhances resistance to several pathogenic fungi in transgenic tobacco
European Journal of Plant Pathology 135 (2), 265-277
Abstract: β-1,3-glucanases, one of the well known families of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins in responding to pathogen infection or some environmental stresses, are hydrolytic enzymes abundant in plants. The plant β-1,3-glucanases are considered to have a broad range of biological functions in the normal physiological process as well as in the defence response against pathogens. Some plant β-1,3-glucanases were studied in detail as antifungal proteins in vivo or in vitro. To investigate the β-1,3-glucanase genes involved in self-defence during fruit development, a novel gene PpGlu was isolated from the fruit of Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai cv Huobali, which is a kind of local sand pear of China with high resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. The putative protein sequence of PpGlu was highly homologous with β-1,3-glucanases from other plant species. Bioinformatics analyses indicated that the catalytic and other conserved amino acid residues occupied highly conserved positions in the primary structure of the putative protein PpGlu and other plant β-1,3-glucanases. Moreover, PpGlu had rather conserved main-chain conformation and the folding patterns of plant β-1,3-glucanases. The transcripts of PpGlu was dramatically induced in pericarps of 'Huobali' fruits by removing the bags for 2 days, but rapidly declined after the fruits were debagged for 1 week. Furthermore, a constitutive plant expression vector of PpGlu was constructed and transferred into tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L. cv Xanthi) to verify the function of PpGlu. The PpGlu gene was successfully integrated into the genome of the transgenic tobacco lines and expressed as expect in the transformants by Southern blotting and quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (QRT-PCR) analyses. The antifungal activity of PpGlu was detected in vitro plates, and the crude protein extract of transgenic tobacco lines inhibited the hyphal growth of the following three fungi, Phomopsis sp., Alternaria sp. and Fusarium sp. at different degrees.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
resistance/tolerance/defence of host

---

Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Fusarium (genus)	Pear (Pyrus)
	Alternaria (anamorphic genus)	Pear (Pyrus)