Extending the benefits of antifungal proteins from plants

One of main challenges of growing crops successfully comes from the natural enemies of plants including viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens. The dependence in agriculture on synthetic agrichemicals including antimicrobials is undoubtedly important but not sustainable for the sake of the environment in the long run. In this chapter, it is noted that there is a large number of papers showing that extracts prepared from different plant parts including seeds often contain a diversity of proteins possessing inhibitory activity in vitro, for example, against various important fungal phytopathogens. Recent genetic engineering approaches could fortify crop plants with some of these genes to help combat against diseases and thus could minimize the need for too extensive agrichemical use. However, public acceptance and education of genetic engineering is still problematic. Besides, genetic engineering like traditional plant breeding takes years to develop useful crops. The potential to develop other applications of antifungal proteins from plants including crop protecton and novel food preservatives was also examined.