Chickpea blight (A.rabiei): Production of phytotoxins and defence genes

The present work was designed to investigate the production of phytotoxic compounds from Ascochyta rabiei and studies of defence genes in blight infected chickpea. Blight, caused by A. rabiei is one of the most serious diseases of chickpea in the world. The fungus was grown on Czapek Dox broth and it produced phytotoxic compounds Solanapyrone A, B & C. These compounds exhibited phytotoxic activities on chickpea by cell bioassay. Three bacterial strains collected from different ecological environments presented anti-fungal activities by agar well plate assay. Beta-glucanase and RIP like gene family of defence genes were also detected in chickpea. The synergistic effect on fungal growth by the mixtures of RIP and chitinase suggests that the effect of RIP can be enhanced with the combination of chitinase. Ability of these proteins to inhibit fungal growth suggests that,they may be capable of inhibiting pathogenic infection in vivo. The work presented in this book, looks extremely valuable to overcome chickpea blight by developing genetic engineering strategies for transgenic plants. Chickpea growers can get benefit by this technology