New Delhi: The pineapple (Ananas comosus) is one of the most economically significant fruits that provides various health benefits. An aggressive fungus (Fusarium moniliforme) causes a disease called fusariosis, which is one of the biggest threats to pineapple farming. The disease warps the stem of the plant, blackens the leaves, and causes the fruit to rot from the inside out, leading to unreliable harvests and heavy losses for farmers, who have been using traditional breeding techniques for years but struggle to keep up with the onslaught of the fungus, that evolves rapidly.
Scientists from the Bose Institute have identified a gene, designated as AcSERK3 that is known to help the plants reproduce and tackle stress. The researchers ‘overexpressed’ the gene in pineapple plants, with the genetic tweak charging the natural defences of the pineapple, allowing it to fend off the Fusifarm fungus more effectively than ordinary varieties of the fruit. This is the first evidence of the overexpression of an inherent pineapple gene to produce a tolerance for fungal diseases. A paper describing the research has been published in the journal In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology-Plants. Tests demonstrated that the modified pineapples had a reduction in disease symptoms, in comparison to wild varieties.
Long-terms field trials
The research can pave the way for the development of a pineapple variety resistant to Fusarium, with little chance of the gene getting deleted out across many generations of breeding. The development of such a variety can be beneficial to farmers. The way in which pineapples propagate exposes them to numerous soil-borne fungi, with the modified pineapple lines being more resilient due to increased metabolites associated with stress, and action by enzymes. In controlled tests with exposure to the fungus, the wild pineapples wilted, while the transgenic pineapples flourished, standing tall and green.