The factors affecting the Agrobacterium mediated gene transformation of tomato cv. Riogrande are reported in detail. Shoot tips (explants) were transformed with pBI333 carrying rice chitinase (cht-3) gene. Approximately 49% transformation frequency was achieved. The optimum conditions for successful transformation were: infecting the explants with the Agrobacterium suspension for two minutes, c...

Pythium ultimum is one of the major causative agents responsible for damping off disease in cucumber plants. In the present study, the effect of potassium phosphite (KPhi) on defense response of P. ultimum-inoculated cucumber plants was investigated. Different plant growth parameters as well as chlorophyll a content were studied to evaluate the healing effec...

Sheath blight disease (ShB), caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani Kühn, is one of the most destructive diseases of rice (Oryza sativa L.), causing substantial yield loss in rice. In the present study, a novel rice chitinase gene, LOC_Os11g47510 was cloned from QTL region of R. solani tolerant rice line Tetep and used for functional validation by genetic transformation of ShB susceptible japo...

Family 18 of glycosyl hydrolases encompasses chitinases and so-called chi-lectins lacking enzymatic activity due to amino acid substitutions in their active site. Both types of proteins widely occur in mammals although these organisms lack endogenous chitin. Their physiological function(s) as well as evolutionary relationships are still largely enigmatic. An overview of all family members is pr...

Chitinase production in Streptomyces lividans is induced by chitin and repressed in the presence of glucose. A mutant of S. lividans TK24, strain G015, which was defective in glucose repression of chitinase production, was obtained by screening colonies for zones of clearing on colloidal chitin agar plates containing 1.0% (wt/vol) glucose. The transcriptional analysis of chiA in G015 with xylE,...

Holometabolous insects complete their life cycle in four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. The larval stage is characterized by instar on an average most larvae has 4- 6 stages that occurs between molts. One of the essential enzyme for process moulting chitinase. Expression chitinase gene takes place when insect ready to moult, wherein old exoskeleton being made chitin replaced with new exosk...

Thermostable chitinases are useful for industrial and biotechnological applications. This paper reports the stabilization of chitinase from Serratia marcescens B4A through rational mutagenesis. Changing of Ser 390 to Ile in S. marcescens. The stabilization was enhanced through entropic stabilization by reduction of the loop length and also by increasing of the beta chain length. With this repla...

Chitinases are hydrolases that degrade chitin, a polymer of N-acetylglucosamine linked β(1-4) present in the exoskeleton of crustaceans, insects, nematodes and fungal cell walls. A metagenome fosmid library from a wastewater-contaminated soil was functionally screened for chitinase activity leading to the isolation and identification of a chitinase gene named metachi18A. The metachi18A gene was...

Disease resistance in transgenic plants has been improved, for the first time, by the insertion of a gene from a biocontrol fungus. The gene encoding a strongly antifungal endochitinase from the mycoparasitic fungus Trichoderma harzianum was transferred to tobacco and potato. High expression levels of the fungal gene were obtained in different plant tissues, which had no visible effect on plant...