TOMATO TRANSFORMATION WITH GENES INVOLVED IN PLANT IMMUNITY TO CONFER BROAD RESISTANCE AGAINST BACTERIA

Abstract

Plant diseases exacerbate the current deficit of food supply. To defend themselves against infections, plants respond to basic characteristic pathogen molecules called pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), which activate basal immunity responses known as PAMP triggered immunity (PTI). It is known that the activity of some PAMPs recognition receptors is retained after their transfer between plant families. The objective of this work was to jointly transfer the genes EFR, FLS2 and BAK1, involved in recognition of PAMPs and activation of PTI in Arabidopsis, into tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) plants, with the goal of generating a wide-range resistance against bacterial pathogens. To reach that, a strategy based in the genetic transformation of plants with a single locus cassette containing the aforementioned genes via Agrobacterium tumefaciens was followed, with the posterior challenge of the transgenic plants with pathogenic bacteria. It was possible to produce transgenic F₄ tomato plants that showed increased resistance to bacteria compared with wild type plants, however the contribution that each of the genes had is unknown. One line in particular showed a reduction of near 60, 73 and 83 % of bacterial infection when infected with Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae, Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato and Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. michiganensis respectively. Results suggest that the heterologous expression of multiple PTI-involved genes under the control of a single promoter could be used to engineer broadspectrum disease resistance to bacterial pathogens in important crops.