November 4, 2011

Tomatoes are widely planted in 159 countries. In Egypt alone, it is estimated 265,000 that hectares of land are planted with tomatoes. Tomato growers have suffered massive losses in production due to high incidence of some lepidopterous insect pests such as cotton leafworm, American bollworm, and potato tuber moth. M.M. Saker, a scientist at the National Research Center in Egypt, together with other researchers, developed a Bt tomato with Cry2Ab through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation.

Through molecular and biochemical analyses, they have confirmed the expression and integration of the Bt gene into the tomato genome. The impact of Cry2Ab was validated by the mortality of American bollworm and potato tuber moth fed with Bt tomato. Therefore, tomato lines expressing Cry2Ab can be used to effectively eradicate lepidopteran insect pests endemic in Egypt.

Read the research article
Production of transgenic tomato plants expressing Cry 2Ab gene for the control of some lepidopterous insects endemic in Egypt
at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1687157X11000242.

This article is part of the Crop Biotech Update, a weekly summary of world developments in agri-biotech for developing countries, produced by the Global Knowledge Center on Crop Biotechnology, International Service for the Aquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications SEAsiaCenter (ISAAA)

Website: http://www.isaaa.org/kc/

Published: November 4, 2011