Increasing bacterial disease resistance in plants utilizing antibacterial genes from insects

Summary The introduction of genes into plants encoding potent antibacterial proteins, derived from insects, may signijicantly augment the level of their resistance to bacterial disease. Using modern tech- niques, genes of choice can be introduced into plant tissue and this tissue can be manipulated to produce viable plants. The potato has been chosen as the model system, not only because of its plasticity of development, which allows for the relatively easy regeneration of whole plants from transformed tissue, but also because the potato ranks among the top four plants in the world in terms of economic importance. Introduction The welfare of humanity is inextricably bound up with the efficient cultivation of plants. Plant disease is a disruptive and, at times, catastrophic occurrence. For instance, late blight, a disease resulting from an infection by a fungal pathogen, caused the starvation of one million people and forced the immigra- tion of another two million to North America owing to its decimation of the potato crop (the infamous Irish Potato Famine of 1845-60). Clearly, the eco- nomic and social impact