Fungal diseases pose a serious threat to food security. Despite the use of chemical fungicides and disease resistant varieties, crop losses due to fungal pathogens still occur. Transgenic crops expressing antifungal proteins offer a commercially viable approach to enhance resistance to fungal pathogens. Antifungal plant defensins are small, cysteine-rich plant defense effector proteins present in all plants. MtDef4 from Medicago truncatula is a 47-amino acid plant defensin that exhibits potent antifungal activity towards an array of filamentous fungal pathogens. The MOA studies have revealed that MtDef4 is internalized by fungal cells, binds to bioactive phospholipid phosphatidic acid and causes intracellular perturbation of fungal physiology leading to cell death. Expression of MtDef4 in transgenic wheat confers resistance to economically important biotrophic Puccinia spp., causal agents of leaf rust and stripe rust diseases of wheat globally. The current status of engineering crops for fungal resistance using antifungal defensins will be discussed.

Mechanisms of action of antifungal plant defensins and genetic engineering for disease resistance

248th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.