Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2010, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (04): 411-418.DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-3466.2010.04.003

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Overexpression of a Novel Antifungal Protein Gene GNK2-1 Results in Elevated Resistance of Transgenic Cucumber to Fusarium oxysporum

Jin Liu; Huali Tian; Yahong Wang; Aiguang Guo*   

  1. Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Agriculture, College of Life Science, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
  • Received:2009-08-31 Online:2010-04-30 Published:2010-09-26
  • Contact: AiGuang Guo

Abstract: A novel antifungal protein, ginkbilobin2-1 (GNK2-1), from Ginkgo biloba seed kernels, was proved to have a stable and significant inhibition effect on fungus growth. The protein showed no similarity to other pathogenesis-related proteins but did show homology to the extracellular domain of plant cysteine-rich receptor-like kinases. In order to improve resistance of transgenic plants to fungal infection, we used RT-PCR to amplify GNK2-1 from G. biloba seeds and transformed the gene into cucumber (Cucumis sativus) cultivar Nongcheng 3 via Agrobacterium-mediated method. Transgenic plants were obtained and the expression of the transgene was confirmed by PCR, RT-PCR and western blot analysis. Resistance tests against Fusarium oxysporum showed that expression of the GNK2-1 in transgenic cucumber plants conferred antifungal activity against this disease. The GNK2-1 gene may be a good candidate for breeding new cucumber varieties with resistance to fungal blight disease.