Disease-resistant plants and method of constructing the same

Abstract

The present invention provides transgenic, disease-resistant plants which have been transformed with an expression cassette including a constitutive gene expression promoter; and a gene, under the control of the promoter, encoding a harpin. The transformed cells in the transgenic plant effect the constitutive expression of the harpin in an amount effective for inducing a defense reaction. The harpin is a protein consisting of an amino acid sequence that is at least 90% homologous to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2, and possesses a hypersensitive-response-inducing activity. The present invention also provides methods for producing the transgenic plants, expression cassettes, recombinant vectors and genes encoding harpins.

1 . A protein selected from:
 (a) a protein having the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2;   (b) a protein having an amino acid sequence derived from the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2, by deletion, substitution, addition or insertion of one or more amino acids, and possessing a hypersensitive-response-inducing activity; and   (c) a protein having an amino acid sequence being at least 97% homologous to the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 2, and possessing a hypersensitive-response-inducing activity.