Extensive cultivation of crops genetically engineered to produce insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) has suppressed some major pests, reduced insecticide sprays, enhanced pest control by natural enemies, and increased grower profits. However, these benefits are being eroded by evolution of resistance in pests. We report a strategy for combating resistance by cro...

Verticillium wilts caused by soilborne fungal species of the Verticillium genus are economically important plant diseases that affect a wide range of host plants and are notoriously difficult to combat. Perception of pathogen(-induced) ligands by plant immune receptors is a key component of plant innate immunity. In tomato, race-specific resistance to Verticillium wilt is governed by the cell s...

Salinity is a major limiting factor for plant growth and development. To evaluate the impact of P5CS gene expression under in vitro salt stress condition, transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana plumbaginifolia) carrying P5CS gene and non-transgenic plants were treated with 0, 100, 150, 200 or 250 mM NaCl for 28 days. Proline content, lipid peroxidation and the activity of some antioxidant enzymes after ...

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades play pivotal roles in mediating biotic and abiotic stress responses. Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is the most important textile crop in the world, and often encounters abiotic stress during its growth seasons. In this study, a gene encoding a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) was isolated from cotton, and designated as GhMPK17. The open read...

Cotton leaf curl disease is the major biotic constraint to cotton production in Pakistan and India.The disease causes unusual symptoms that include vein swelling, enations and the formation of leaf-like outgrowths. Cotton production during the 1990s was severely curtailed by CLCuD across the sub-continent. This stimulated interest in determining the aetiology and generating resistant varieties....

transformation of plants using agrabacterium rhizogenes may affect secondary metabolite production as well as morphological changes. in this study, t-dna from ri plasmid in a. rhizogenes carrying pri15834-prt35s-gus was introduced into tobacco leaf segments to initiate development of transformed hairy roots. plant regeneration from transgenic roots used ms medium, and plants regenerated fro...

Data have been lacking on the proportion of Helicovera zea larvae that develop on noncotton host plants that can serve as a refuge from selection pressure for adaptation to transgenic cotton varieties that produce a toxin from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis. We found that individual H. zea moths that develop as larvae on cotton and other plants with C3 physiology have a different ratio of...

Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is an important economic crop and there is obvious heterosis in cotton, fertility has played an important role in this heterosis. However, the genes that exhibit critical roles in anther development and fertility are not well understood. Here, we report an acyl-CoA N-acyltransferase (EC2.3; GhACNAT) that plays a key role in anther development and fertility. Suppression o...

portrayed by some environmental groups as an enemy of our ecosystem. I am here today, as a representative of the agri-business industry, to address concerns of agricultural biotechnology and its impact on the environment, particularly the concerns surrounding the environmental impact of gene escape from transgenic plants to wild plants and the development of resistance by pests to genetically a...