Transgenic sweet orange plants expressing the antimicrobial peptide dermaseptin are resistant to citrus canker disease

NICOLÁS FURMAN; KEN KOBAYASHI; MARÍA C ZANEK; JAVIER CALCAGNO; MARIA LAURA GARCIA, PH.D.; ALEJANDRO N MENTABERRY

JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2013

0168-1656

Citrus canker provoked by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri is a bacterial disease causing severe losses in all citrus-producing areas around the world. Xanthomonas infection is considered an endemic disease in Northeast and Northwest Argentina, affecting as much as 10% of commercial citrus plantations. There is not known natural resistance neither in orange varieties nor in rootstocks used for grafting of commercial cultivars. To introduce resistance to this disease, plants of Pineapple sweet orange were transformed with a genetic construct allowing dermaseptin constitutive accumulation. In comparison with non-transformed plants, transgenic plants showed levels of symptom reduction of up to 50%, as measured by canker formation frequency, in in planta assays performed under controlled conditions.