Gastrodia antifungal protein gene or can overcome cotton "cancer"

At present, about half of the cotton planting area in China is affected by the yellow wilt disease, which not only significantly reduces cotton yield but also greatly reduces fiber quality . Verticillium dahliae, which causes verticillium wilt, can survive in soil for more than 10 years. So far, there is no effective fungicide in production. Therefore, breeding resistant cotton varieties is considered to be an important means to prevent and control verticillium wilt. Lack of effective resistance to the source, so far has not successfully cultivated high-resistance varieties. Therefore, Verticillium wilt has always been considered a "cancer" of cotton.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that there are four antifungal protein genes, gafp, in gastrodia elata, which has good resistance to various fungi including verticillium wilt. Among them, gafp4 has the strongest antibacterial activity and has intercellular The primed signal peptide can significantly enhance resistance. The researchers transferred gafp4 into two upland cotton cultivars and conducted three consecutive years of identification of Verticillium wilt. The gafp4 has very obvious resistance to different physiological types of Verticillium dahliae strains and is an effective high resistant cotton yellow. Wilt protein. It is particularly important that gafp4 transgenic cotton also has an increase in fiber yield of 20.7% to 51.7%. Therefore, the results of this study have made it possible to overcome the "incurable disease" of cotton through plant genetic engineering. (柯学苑)