Molecular analysis of gene from ginger and Zingiber zerumbet encoding resistance to bacterial wilt

Abstract

The bottleneck in ginger cultivation is bacterial wilt which causes crop damage of more than 70%. Since conventional cross-breeding in ginger is difficult, genetic engineering has allowed new ginger variety resistance to bacterial wilt development. Thus, a homologous sequence of resistance genes (RRS1-R) could be designed and constructed, then transformed to generate new ginger variety tolerance to R. solanacearum. The more resistant genotypes (red ginger and wild ginger/shampoo ginger) were subjected to gene isolation in this research. The red and wild ginger species were first inoculated with a suspension of R. solanacearum before gene isolation. Then, the generated primer was used to isolate homologous sequences of RRS1-R gene candidates from both species. Cloning and sequence results showed that induced red and wild ginger tissues to R. solanacearum were expressed on both species. However, the RRS1-R homologous gene was not detected. Furthermore, the full-length DNA gene cloned from the red and wild ginger species was homologous to the Kafirin gene group. These results indicated that different genes might have been involved in encoding resistance to bacterial wilt in ginger.