Jasmonate (JA) plays an important role in regulating plant male fertility and secondary metabolism, but its role in regulating primary metabolism remains unclear. The F-box protein CORONATINE INSENSITIVE 1 (COI1) is a critical component of the JA receptor, and mediates JA-signalling by targeting JASMONATE ZIM-domain (JAZ) proteins for proteasomal degradation in response to JA perception. Here, ...

‘Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum’ (Lso) is a phloem-limited bacterial plant pathogen infecting solanaceous plants in the Americas and New Zealand associated with diseases of apiaceous crops Europe, Northern Africa, Middle East. This also related to other species that infect crops. In USA, two haplotypes Lso, LsoA LsoB, are predominant responsible for potato tomato. Tobacco, Nicotiana tabac...

Many harpins have been found in plant pathogen bacteria that can elicit disease and insect resistance in plants, and promote plant growth. In this work, we overexpressed and purified Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae harpin, harpin(Xoo), in Escherichia coli BL21/pGEX-hpa1. Harpin(Xoo) was fused to the C-terminus of glutathione S-transferase (GST) and purified using the Bulk GST purification module ...

Although integration of viral DNA into host chromosomes occurs regularly in bacteria and animals, there are few reported cases in plants, and these involve insertion at only one or a few sites. Here, we report that pararetrovirus-like sequences have integrated repeatedly into tobacco chromosomes, attaining a copy number of approximately 10(3). Insertion apparently occurred by illegitimate recom...

The tree legume leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala) is rich in protein content, but it also contains the toxin mimosine. A set of genes involved in mimosine degradation has been identified from Rhizobium TAL1145. TAL1145 degrades mimosine in two steps: the mid genes encode enzymes that break down mimosine to 3-hydroxy-4-pyridone (HP); HP is further degraded by a dioxygenase and a hydrolase, encode...

Polygalacturonases (PGs), enzymes that hydrolyze the homogalacturonan of the plant cell wall, are virulence factors of several phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria. On the other hand, PGs may activate defense responses by releasing oligogalacturonides (OGs) perceived by the plant cell as host-associated molecular patterns. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants ...

A DNA construct encoding cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) and an anti-diabetic peptide from human heat shock protein 60 (hsp60) as a fusion protein was produced and transferred into low-nicotine tobacco through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Integration of the fusion gene into the plant genome was confirmed by PCR. The transcriptional expression of the fusion gene was demonstrated by RTPCR...

Plants contain RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) activities that synthesize short cRNAs by using cellular or viral RNAs as templates. During studies of salicylic acid (SA)-induced resistance to viral pathogens, we recently found that the activity of a tobacco RdRP was increased in virus-infected or SA-treated plants. Biologically active SA analogs capable of activating plant defense response ...