Novel antifungal defensins from Nigella sativa L. seeds

✍ Scribed by Eugene A. Rogozhin; Yulia I. Oshchepkova; Tatyiana I. Odintsova; Natalia V. Khadeeva; Olga N. Veshkurova; Tsezi A. Egorov; Eugene V. Grishin; Shavkat I. Salikhov

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 897 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0981-9428
• DOI: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2010.10.008

✦ Synopsis

From seeds of Nigella sativa L. (Ranunculaceae), an endemic plant of Uzbekistan, two novel defensins named Ns-D1 and Ns-D2, were isolated and sequenced. The peptides differ by a single amino acid residue and show high sequence similarity to Raphanus sativus L. defensins Rs-AFP1 and Rs-AFP2. The Ns-D1 and Ns-D2 defensins display strong although divergent antifungal activity towards a number of phytopathogenic fungi. High antifungal activity of N. sativa defensins makes them promising candidates for engineering pathogen-resistant plants.