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Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria

Bibliography: pages 117-130.

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Main Author: Downing, Katrina Jo
Other Authors: Thomson, Jennifer Ann
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology 2016
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access_status_str Open Access
author Downing, Katrina Jo
author2 Thomson, Jennifer Ann
author_browse Downing, Katrina Jo
Thomson, Jennifer Ann
author_facet Thomson, Jennifer Ann
Downing, Katrina Jo
author_sort Downing, Katrina Jo
collection Thesis
description Bibliography: pages 117-130.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/21337
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:45.686Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
publishDateRange 2016
publishDateSort 2016
publisher Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
publisherStr Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/21337 Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria Downing, Katrina Jo Thomson, Jennifer Ann Molecular and Cell Biology Bibliography: pages 117-130. Protection of plants from pathogens and pests by introduced microorganisms provides an alternative to environmentally hazardous chemical pesticides and fungicides. Plant associated, free living, non-pathogenic bacteria found in the rhizosphere and phyllo plane have been the emphasis of research on biological control· agents. These regions however pose problems of competition between introduced microorganisms and native microflora and environmental extremes. Endophytic bacteria, present in the interior regions of healthy plants, offer a solution to these problems. Since little work has been done to date with endophytes, the work reported in this thesis comprises a novel approach to achieving biological control of a plant pest and pathogens .An endophytic strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens was isolated from micro propagated apple plantlets and shown to be present in the roots of beans at a level of 1.2 x 10⁵ CFU/g fresh weight 10 days after introduction. Generation of spontaneous rifampicin resistant mutants of this strain resulted in P. fluorescens Rifl. Isolates of P. fluorescens and Aeromonas caviae were recovered from the interior regions of surface sterilized bean seeds. In addition, two sugarcane endophytes, Acetobacter diazotrophicus and Herbaspirillum seropedicae, which has also been isolated from rice, maize and sorghum, as well as an endophytic Citrobacter sp. of pine seeds and bean plants were used in this work. The gene coding for the major chitinase of S. marcescens, chiA, was cloned under the control of the tac promoter by PCR amplification. The gene contained the endogenous Shine Dalgarno sequence 7 bases upstream of the ATG start codon in the plasmid pTC33. The plasmid ptacchiA had previously been constructed with a distance of 20 bases between the ribosome binding site of this vector and the A TG start codon of the gene. Gene expression of chiA carried on pTC33 was shown to be approximately 16-foldhigher than that of ptacchiA. This clearly illustrated that the distance between the Shine Dalgarno sequence and ATG start codon was critical and that the shorter distance of 7 bases significantly increased the translation efficiency of chiA. The first and second generation tacchiA cassettes from ptacchiA and pTC33 respectively were cloned into the broad host range plasmids pKT240, pDER405 and pML122 and into the integration vector pJfF350.These plasmids were introduced into the endophytes P.fluorescens Rift, H. seropedicae and Citrobacter sp.AJl by conjugative transfer and electroporation and were shown to express the gene at varying levels. pKTCl and pMTC33 carrying the 1 and 2nd generation tacchiA cassettes on pKT240 and pML122respectively were not stably maintained in P. fluorescens Rift or H. seropedicae. 2016-08-18T13:53:31Z 2016-08-18T13:53:31Z 1997 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21337 eng application/pdf Department of Molecular and Cell Biology Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Molecular and Cell Biology
Downing, Katrina Jo
Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria
title_full Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria
title_fullStr Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria
title_full_unstemmed Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria
title_short Biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned Serratia marcescens chiA gene and Bacillus thuringiensis cryIA(c) gene in endophytic bacteria
title_sort biological control of a plant pathogen and pest by expression of a cloned serratia marcescens chia gene and bacillus thuringiensis cryia c gene in endophytic bacteria
topic Molecular and Cell Biology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21337
work_keys_str_mv AT downingkatrinajo biologicalcontrolofaplantpathogenandpestbyexpressionofaclonedserratiamarcescenschiageneandbacillusthuringiensiscryiacgeneinendophyticbacteria