Expression of a Ribosome Inhibiting Protein (RIP) or a Bacterial Chitinase Leads to Fungal Resistance in Transgenic Plants

Abstract

In order to protect plants against fungal attack, two genes (RIP, ChiA) encoding proteins with in vitro antifungal activity were expressed in transgenic tobacco plants. 1. A barley derived cDNA clone (RIP) encoding a ribosome inhibiting protein. RIP inhibits protein synthesis in fungi by specific RNA N-glycosidase modification of the 28S RNA. 2. A chitinase gene (ChiA) derived from the bacterium Serratia marcescens with the ability to destroy hyphal tips of growing fungi. Plants expressing RIP-protein or ChiA-protein under the control of the wound-inducible promoter wunl or the constitutive 35S-promoter were infected with the plant pathogenic fungus Rhizoctonia solani.Whereas the growth of control plants was drastically reduced because of root and stem disease, RIP- and ChiA-transgenic plants were growing nearly as fast as uninfected tobacco plants and showed reduced infection symptoms. The fungal resistance of these transgenic tobacco plants was stably inherited.KeywordsTransgenic PlantAntifungal ActivityTransgenic Tobacco PlantSerratia MarcescensChitinase GeneThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.