Strategies for Controlling Plant Diseases and Mycotoxin Contamination Using Antimicrobial Synthetic Peptides

Development of disease-resistant transgenic crops is made difficult because host plant-pathogen interactions are complex and often crop/variety or pathogen/strain-specific. Synthetic peptides are useful in controlling a broad-spectrum of plant pathogens including the difficult-to-control, mycotoxin-producing fungal species such as Aspergillus and Fusarium. The effectiveness of synthetic peptide genes in transgenic crops for controlling microbial pathogens has been well established in our laboratory and elsewhere. Some of the additional advantages of synthetic peptides include 1) they are not subject to rapid degradation in cytoplasm as compared to naturally occurring peptides, 2) they offer unique resistance to microbes because of their novelty and preempt possible development of resistance, and 3) preliminary studies indicate that they are not harmful to beneficial microbes in the rhizosphere. This paper reviews various strategies of synthetic peptide gene expression in transgenic crops for controlling or inhibiting plant pathogens including mycotoxin producing fungi.