Construction of plant expression vectors harboring chitinase (chit42) and glucanase (bgn13.1) genes from Trichoderma species

Pathogenic fungi are including the most important causes of damage in agricultural products. One way to combat fungal diseases is using genetic engineering to transfer genes encode hydrolase enzymes, especially chitinase and glucanase to crops. Antagonistic fungi such as Trichoderma, producing hydrolase enzymes chitinase and glucanase, have a significant inhibitory effect on the growth of pathogenic fungi.Enzymes isolated from different species of these fungi are more effective than those isolated from other sources. In the present study, chit42 and bgn13.1 genes isolated from T. atroviride and T. virens, were used to make three plant expression constructs consists of two constructs harboring one chitinase gene (pBIKE1) or glucanase gene (pBIKE2) and a construct harboring both of these genes (pBIKE3) under the control of CaMV 35S promoter and NOS terminator. Also during the construction of these vectors, new vector which was named pBI121GUS- was developed based on pBI121, without the gus gene. Constructs in this research project can be transferred to plants to produce GM plants resistant against fungi or to analyze the effects of these genes on pathogens.