Abstract
The worldwide demand for natural bast fibers is met aptly by the long, golden and silky fibers of jute. This highest bast fiber producing crop is of great applicability and is extensively used in paper and textile industry. Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid is a severely devastating necrotrophic fungal pathogen causing stem rot, root rot, and charcoal rot diseases in both the cultivated species of jute – Corchorus capsularis and Corchorus olitorius. Another major problem faced in jute cultivation is profuse weed infestation in the fields. Huge losses in quality fiber production is caused by this pathogenic fungi and cultivation cost increases as well due to weed management expenditure during cropping season. To solve these long persisting jute cultivation challenges, the chitinase (chi11) gene (to provide fungus resistance) and the bar gene (to provide herbicide tolerance) have been incorporated in C. capsularis JRC-321 via Agrobacterium transformation and analyzed up to T2 generation. Stable integration and expression of these two genes in the jute genome was confirmed upon extensive analyses. Transgenic plants showed higher chitinase expression and chitin degrading activity than non-transgenic control plants. Antifungal activity significantly increased in transgenic plants as confirmed by detached leaf and whole plant M. phaseolina bioassay. Herbicide tolerance was analyzed by growing transgenic plants in 10 mg/l glufosinate ammonium containing media and by spraying 0.25% (v/v) glufosinate herbicide Basta® on them. Assessment of residual phytotoxicity effects of Basta® on soil confirmed no negative impact on growth of indicator plants corn and cucumber. Transgenic jute plants were at par with non-transgenic (control) jute plants in all phenotypic aspects. Non-transgenic (control) jute plants suffered significant losses in fiber yield and quality due to M. phaseolina infection whereas the transgenic lines maintained the quality of fiber even after the infection.
Highlights
Jute (Corchorus sp.) plants provide long, golden and natural bast fibers that are applied for various industrial and domestic uses
Shoot tips were co-cultivated with Agrobacterium cells that harbored chi11 and bar genes
A total of 10 T0 transgenic plant lines were developed with 3% transformation efficiency and these independent transgenic lines were named as JBC 1, 2, and 3, respectively (Supplementary Table 1)
Summary
Jute (Corchorus sp.) plants provide long, golden and natural bast fibers that are applied for various industrial and domestic uses. M. phaseolina infects more than 500 different plant species of more than 100 plant families including major food crops (maize and sorghum), pulse crops (green gram, mung bean, groundnut, and sesame), oil crops (sunflower, soybean, and castor) vegetable crops (tomato, potato, onion, and garlic) and fiber crop (cotton) (Wyllie, 1988; Das et al, 2008). It remains infectious for more than 4 years in soil and crop residue as sclerotia (Islam et al, 2012). No cultivable jute variety, that has complete resistance against M. phaseolina, has been reported by conventional breeding approaches
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