Poster Presentations
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Host Plant Induced Silencing of Vital Gene of Fungal Pathogen Fusarium oxysporum for Resistance Against Fusarium wilt in Tomato
Mahak Sachdev, Student, University of Delhi
Fusarium oxysporum is the most common species of the genus Fusarium and causes vascular wilt in different plant species. In India, F. oxysporum f.sps lycopersici is responsible for about 45% of tomato yield losses annually. Recently, RNA interference (RNAi), a potential sequence-specific gene silencing technique has proven to be a novel alternative for the control of phytopathogenic fungi. This approach involves the selection of an essential gene of the target pathogen and production of corresponding dsRNA in the host plant for silencing of the target gene upon infection. Argininosuccinate lyase enzyme encoded by Arg1 gene catalyzes the last step for arginine biosynthesis pathway in fungi. Therefore, we hypothesized that the expression of dsRNA specific to the target Arg1 gene in transgenic tomato plants might confer resistance against Fusarium wilt. In the present study, the sequence of Arg1 gene (cDNA) was retrieved from NCBI. The hairpin RNAi construct harboring Arg1 gene in sense and antisense orientation (FoArg1) was prepared. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation (ATMT) was utilized for generating fungal transformants. The transformants exhibited less conidiation and growth as compared to the wild-type. Based on these observations, a plant transformation RNAi construct was prepared and used to generate tomato FoArg1hp-RNAi plants. These tomato RNAi lines are being tested for resistance against Fusarium wilt under controlled growth conditions.
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