July 28, 2005
by Wagdy Sawahel,
SciDev.Net
A
chemical that South American frogs excrete from their skin could
protect potatoes and other crops from a range of diseases,
according to biotechnologists in Canada.
Researchers at the
University of Victoria
inserted a modified frog gene into potato plants to make them
produce the chemical.
The genetically modified (GM)
potatoes showed resistance to infection by a broad range of
disease-causing fungi and bacteria, including those responsible
for diseases such as dry rot, late blight and pink rot.
Different species of frog
produce different sets of chemicals, including some called
dermaseptins, from their skin depending on the environment they
inhabit. The chemicals help protect frogs from bacteria and
other 'pathogens'.
The most potent dermaseptin,
known as B1, has been isolated from the skin of tree frogs
called Phyllomedusa bicolor that live in the rainforests
of South America, where the hot and humid conditions mean fungi
and bacteria thrive.
The Canadian team showed that a
synthetic version of dermaseptin B1 inhibited the growth of "an
exceptionally broad range" of fungi that cause plant diseases,
as well as the bacterium Erwinia carotovora, which causes
blackleg in potato plants in the field and soft rot of tubers in
storage.
The researchers genetically
modified potatoes to produce the chemical and exposed the GM
plants to the same organisms. The inserted gene gave "unusually
broad-spectrum and powerful resistance to infection", according
to the team's research, which the journal Theoretical and
Applied Genetics published online in June.
Santosh Misra, who led the work,
told SciDev.Net the approach could help farmers in developing
countries to reduce pesticide use, increase yields and reduce
losses of crops stored after harvest.
Fungal and bacterial infections
can cause heavy losses of potato crops. The standard approach
has, in recent decades, been to spray crops with pesticides, but
this can be damaging to the environment and farmers' health, and
encourages the fungi and bacteria to develop
pesticide-resistance.
Misra's team says that because
their GM potatoes could resist so many types of disease-causing
organism, the same gene could be used to protect other crops
such as wheat, barley and sugar.
The researchers say that the
preliminary results of studies to show the safety of dermaseptin
B1 "are positive". They add that the GM plants showed no ill
effects of having been genetically modified.
Eric Messens, professor of plant
molecular genetics at Flanders Interuniversity Institute for
Biotechnology at Ghent University, Belgium, says the research
into the safety of GM crop using genes that produce toxins
should precede the main research, not follow it.
Messons told SciDev.Net that it
was important to test if dermaseptin B1 is toxic to people and
animals, as well as study whether the chemical gets broken down
or builds up in the body.
"Long-term effects must be taken
into consideration because even though the authors claim that
the amount of dermaseptin is low, the accumulation effect can
not be ignored," said Messons.
For example, said Messons,
long-term consumption of peas called Lathyrus sativus can
cause paralysis if a toxin in the peas accumulates in people, as
has happened in Bangladesh and India.
Messons suggests that safety
could be improved by ensuring that GM potatoes only produce
dermaseptin B1 when they become infected, and then only in the
skin of the potato, which could then be removed by peeling.
ABSTRACT
Genetic
modification of potato against microbial diseases: in vitro and
in planta activity of a dermaseptin B1 derivative, MsrA2
Milan Osusky,
Lubica Osuska, William Kay and Santosh Misra
Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of
Victoria, Victoria, B.C., V8W 3P6, Canada
Received:
30 November 2004 Accepted:
25 April 2005 Published
online: 10 June 2005
Communicated by L.
Willmitzer
Abstract
Dermaseptin B1 is a potent cationic antimicrobial
peptide found in skin secretions of the arboreal frog
Phyllomedusa bicolor. A synthetic derivative of
dermaseptin B1, MsrA2 (N-Met-dermaseptin B1),
elicited strong antimicrobial activities against various
phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria in vitro. To assess its
potential for plant protection, MsrA2 was expressed at low
levels (1–5 g/g
of fresh tissue) in the transgenic potato (Solanum
tuberosum L.) cv. Desiree. Stringent challenges of these
transgenic potato plants with a variety of highly virulent
fungal phytopathogens—Alternaria, Cercospora,
Fusarium, Phytophthora, Pythium,
Rhizoctonia and Verticillium species—and with the
bacterial pathogen Erwinia carotovora demonstrated
that the plants had an unusually broad-spectrum and powerful
resistance to infection. MsrA2 profoundly protected both
plants and tubers from diseases such as late blight, dry rot
and pink rot and markedly extended the storage life of
tubers. Due to these properties in planta, MsrA2 is proposed
as an ideal antimicrobial peptide candidate to significantly
increase resistance to phytopathogens and improve quality in
a variety of crops worldwide with the potential to obviate
fungicides and facilitate storage under difficult
conditions.
Reference: Theoretical and Applied Genetics
doi: 10.1007/s00122-005-2056-y |