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Control of apple blue mold by Pichia pastoris recombinant strains expressing cecropin A

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Abstract

Recombinant Pichia pastoris yeasts expressing cecropin A (GS115/CEC), was evaluated for the control of the blue mold of apple caused by Penicillium expansum due to cecropin A peptide’s effective antimicrobial effects on P. expansum spores by the thiazolyl blue (MTT) assay. Then, the protein concentration was determined and it was expressed at high levels up to 14.2 mg/L in the culture medium. Meanwhile, the population growth was assayed in vivo. The population growth of recombinant strain GS115/CEC was higher than that of non-transformed strain GS115 in red Fuji apples wounds. Recombinant yeast strains GS115/CEC significantly inhibited growth of germinated P. expansum spores in vitro and inhibited decay development caused by P. expansum in apple fruits in vivo when compared with apple fruits inoculated with sterile water or the yeast strain GS115/pPIC (plasmid pPIC9k transformed in GS115). This study demonstrated the potential of expression of the antifungal peptide in yeast for the control of postharvest blue mold infections on pome fruits.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially supported by the Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of People’s Republic of China (201061), the Program for Key Innovative Research Team of Zhejiang Province (2009R50036), the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (20090101120079, 20100101110087), the Open Foundation from Top Key Discipline of Modern Agricultural Biotechnology and Biological Control of Crop Diseases in Zhejiang Provincial Colleges (2010KFJJ006), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (20906060), Open Project Program for Key Laboratory of Fermentation Engineering (Ministry of Education) (2009KFJJ02), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, Zhejiang, China

    Xueyan Ren, Huili Wang, Ting Yu, Wen-Wen Zhou & Xiaodong Zheng

  2. Department of Life Science, Shihezi University, Shihezi, 832003, Xinjiang, China

    Xueyan Ren & Qingjun Kong

  3. Key Laboratory of Fermentation Engineering (Ministry of Education), Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, Hubei, China

    Ya-Jie Tang

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  1. Xueyan Ren
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  2. Qingjun Kong
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  3. Huili Wang
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  4. Ting Yu
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  5. Ya-Jie Tang
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  6. Wen-Wen Zhou
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  7. Xiaodong Zheng
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Correspondence to Wen-Wen Zhou or Xiaodong Zheng.

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Ren, X., Kong, Q., Wang, H. et al. Control of apple blue mold by Pichia pastoris recombinant strains expressing cecropin A. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 35, 761–767 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-011-0656-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-011-0656-2

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