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Plant defensins: types, mechanism of action and prospects of genetic engineering for enhanced disease resistance in plants

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Abstract

Natural antimicrobial peptides have been shown as one of the important tools to combat certain pathogens and play important role as a part of innate immune system in plants and, also adaptive immunity in animals. Defensin is one of the antimicrobial peptides with a diverse nature of mechanism against different pathogens like viruses, bacteria and fungi. They have a broad function in humans, vertebrates, invertebrates, insects, and plants. Plant defensins primarily interact with membrane lipids for their biological activity. Several antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) have been overexpressed in plants for enhanced disease protection. The plants defensin peptides have been efficiently employed as an effective strategy for control of diseases in plants. They can be successfully integrated in plants genome along with some other peptide genes in order to produce transgenic crops for enhanced disease resistance. This review summarizes plant defensins, their expression in plants and enhanced disease resistance potential against phytopathogens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, Pakistan

    Raham Sher Khan, Aneela Iqbal, Radia Malak, Kashmala Shehryar, Syeda Attia, Mubarak Ali Khan & Muhammad Arif

  2. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, College of Arts and Science, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    Talaat Ahmed

  3. Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences, Chiba University Japan, Chiba, Japan

    Masahiro Mii

Authors
  1. Raham Sher Khan
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  2. Aneela Iqbal
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  3. Radia Malak
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  4. Kashmala Shehryar
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  5. Syeda Attia
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  6. Talaat Ahmed
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  7. Mubarak Ali Khan
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  8. Muhammad Arif
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  9. Masahiro Mii
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Correspondence to Raham Sher Khan.

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Sher Khan, R., Iqbal, A., Malak, R. et al. Plant defensins: types, mechanism of action and prospects of genetic engineering for enhanced disease resistance in plants. 3 Biotech 9, 192 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-019-1725-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-019-1725-5

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