Antifungal activity of recombinant rice LTP2 on some phytopathogenic fungi

Plant lipid transfer proteins (LTPs) are members of the pathogenesis-related proteins (PR-14) and some of them exhibit activity against phytopathogenic fungi. To investigate whether rice LTP2 plays a role in antifungal activity, the coding region of an Iranian rice Ltp2 gene was cloned into expression vector pET24-d(+) and then expressed in Escherichia coli Rosetta strain (DE3). The potential antifungal activity of the purified LTP2 was tested on mycelial growth of some important phytopathogenic fungi. The results showed that the rice LTP2 inhibit the growth of Rhizoctonia solani, Botrytis cinerea,Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, Fusarium sporotrichioides and F. oxysporum. Also, the purified LTP2 protein was shown to strongly inhibit spore germination and consequential mycelia of Alternaria brassicola.