Engineering the heat-tolerant tomato plant with a stacking of cysteine protease inhibitor and chitinase genes exhibits resistance against root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita)

Root-knot nematodes are sendentary parasitic nematode, they attack multiple economic crops and cause productivity and economic losses. The strategies of nematode control are culture management, resistant cultivar and nematocide. Although useful nematocide is used to reduce nematode population, it causes the enormous harm to human and environment. Through, our goal is to engineer the nematode-resistant plant to replace nematocide. We construct the Colocasia esculenta cysteine protease inhibitor (CeCPI) and Paecilomyces javanicus chitinase-1(PjCHI-1) driven by a synthetic promoter, pMSPOA . 6 weeks afeter root-knot nematode infection, we calculate the root galls and egg mass, and we find that the number of root galls and egg mass are reduced. In the previous study, we know that CeCPI can affect the nematode digestion and PjCHI-1 can destroy the egg shell. The transgenic plants showed prominently the reduction of saccate, decline of enlarged saccate female percentage, lack of chitin content, decrease of eggs per egg mass and retardation of embryogenesis. In conclusion, the transgenic plants which are overexpressed PjCHI nad CeCPI can effectively control the propagation Meloidogyne incognita and to decline nematode progeny.