Cloning & Transgenesis
Open Access
ISSN: 2168-9849
ISSN: 2168-9849
Parinita Agarwal and Pradeep K. Agarwal
Jatropha curcas L., a member of Euphorbiaceae family, is being promoted as a biofuel crop and has attracted great interest in the scientific community. The cultivation in wastelands of Jatropha curcas as a biofuel crop avoids the alleged food vs. fuel dilemma. The infestation of collar rot caused by fungus Macrophomina phaseolina imposes heavy yield loss in this plant. In this review we highlight the significance of a pathogenesis related gene, JcPR-10a from this biofuel crop towards stress/defence tolerance. The JcPR-10a recombinant protein exhibit RNase and DNase activity interestingly, the protein also possess antifungal activity against Macrophomina. The docking analysis reveals the binding of three BAP (6-benzylaminopurine) molecules at the active sites of JcPR-10a protein. Furthermore, the overexpression of JcPR-10a gene result in improved shoot regeneration, salinity tolerance and reduced fungal susceptibility in transgenic tobacco. Interestingly, the transgenics also show enhanced endogenous cytokinin level as compared to wild type plants, which, further increased with salinity. Therefore, JcPR-10a gene can serve as an important candidate to engineer stress tolerance in Jatropha as well as other plants susceptible to collar rot by Macrophomina.