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Expression of the shrimp antimicrobial peptide penaeidin 4-1 confers resistance against brown patch disease in tall fescue

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Abstract

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) is an important grass widely used in North Carolina and other transition zone states in the US for turf and as forage. Brown patch caused by subgroup AG1-AI of Rhizoctonia solani is the most severe and frequently occurring fungal disease for tall fescue plants. The objective of this research was to genetically engineer tall fescue to improve its resistance to the pathogen. The gene (Pen4-1) of a novel antimicrobial peptide—Penaeidin 4-1 from a shrimp species was introduced into tall fescue var. ‘Coronado’ through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Among the five transgenic plants containing the Pen4-1 transgene, four of them displayed significantly higher level of resistance against R. solani subgroup AG1-IA, with two being highly resistant (p < 0.001). Up to 75 % reduction of the lesion size was achieved. The results indicate that Pen4-1 confers resistance to various subgroups of R. solani and is a promising candidate for engineered resistance to a wide-spectrum pathogens in tall fescue.

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Abbreviations

AG:

Anastomosis groupings

AMP:

Antimicriobial peptides

Hph :

Hygromycin B phosphotransferase gene

hyg B:

Hygromycin B

MS:

Murashige and Skoog medium

Pen4-1:

Penaeidin 4-1

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Dr. Lane Tredway for the AG1-IA inoculate and advises on evaluation of disease resistance, to Dr. Consuelo Arellano for guidance on statistical analysis. We thank NCSU Center for Turfgrass Environmental Research and Education for financial support to the project, and NCSU Phytotron for providing facility to the project.

Author contribution

B.Z., H.L., and R.Q. planned the experiments. B.Z. conducted the experiments, collected and analyzed the data. B.Z., H.L. and R.Q. wrote the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Crop Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27606, USA

    Binbin Zhou & Rongda Qu

  2. Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29634, USA

    Hong Luo

Authors
  1. Binbin Zhou
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  2. Hong Luo
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  3. Rongda Qu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rongda Qu.

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Zhou, B., Luo, H. & Qu, R. Expression of the shrimp antimicrobial peptide penaeidin 4-1 confers resistance against brown patch disease in tall fescue. Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 125, 599–603 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-016-0963-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-016-0963-z

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