biologia plantarum

International journal on Plant Life established by Bohumil Němec in 1959

Biologia plantarum 51:135-141, 2007 | DOI: 10.1007/s10535-007-0026-8

Thaumatin gene confers resistance to fungal pathogens as well as tolerance to abiotic stresses in transgenic tobacco plants

M. V. Rajam1,*, N. Chandola1, P. Saiprasad Goud1, D. Singh1, V. Kashyap1, M. L. Choudhary2, D. Sihachakr3
1 Department of Genetics, Plant Polyamine and Transgenic Research Laboratory, University of Delhi-South Campus, New Delhi, India
2 Division of Floriculture, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, NewDelhi, India
3 Lab. Ecologie, Systematique et Evolution, Université Paris Sud, Orsay Cedex, France

We report here the development of transgenic tobacco plants with thaumatin gene of Thaumatococcus daniellii under the control of a strong constitutive promoter-CaMV 35S. Both polymerase chain reaction and genomic Southern analysis confirmed the integration of transgene. Transgenic plants exhibited enhanced resistance with delayed disease symptoms against fungal diseases caused by Pythium aphanidermatum and Rhizoctonia solani. The leaf extract from transgenic plants effectively inhibited the mycelial growth of these pathogenic fungi in vitro. The transgenic seeds exhibited higher germination percentage and seedling survival under salinity and PEG-mediated drought stress as compared to the untransformed controls. These observations suggest that thaumatin gene can confer tolerance to both fungal pathogens and abiotic stresses.

Keywords: disease resistance; Nicotiana tobacum; pathogenesis-related proteins; plant transformation
Subjects: abiotic stresses; Agrobacterium tumefaciens; cytokinins; drought stress and tolerance; fungal pathogens; Nicotiana tabacum; nutrient medium, Murashige and Skoog (MS); polymerase chain reaction (PCR); proteins, pathogenesis-related (PR-proteins); salinity, salt stress; thaumatin-like proteins; tobacco; transgenic plants

Received: February 16, 2005; Accepted: January 5, 2006; Published: March 1, 2007  Show citation

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Rajam, M.V., Chandola, N., Saiprasad Goud, P., Singh, D., Kashyap, V., Choudhary, M.L., & Sihachakr, D. (2007). Thaumatin gene confers resistance to fungal pathogens as well as tolerance to abiotic stresses in transgenic tobacco plants. Biologia plantarum, 51(1), 135-141. doi: 10.1007/s10535-007-0026-8
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