iJAZ-based approach to engineer lepidopteran pest resistance in multiple crop species

作者：棉花生物育种与综合利用全国重点实验室 日期：2024-05-08 访问量：

Huijuan Mo, Huimin Chang, Ge Zhao, Guanjing Hu, Xiumei Luo , Xue Jia, Zhenlu Xu, Guangming Ren, Li Feng, Jonathan F. Wendel , Xiaoya Chen , Maozhi Ren , Fuguang Li 

Nature Plants

Doi:10.1038/s41477-024-01682-3

Abstract：

The fall armyworm (FAW) poses a signifcant threat to global crop production. Here we showed that overexpression of jasmonate ZIM-domain ( JAZ) protein GhJAZ24 confers resistance to cotton bollworm and FAW, while also causing sterility in transgenic cotton by recruiting TOPLESS and histone deacetylase 6. We identifed the NGR motif of GhJAZ24 that recognizes and binds the aminopeptidase N receptor, enabling GhJAZ24 to enter cells and disrupt histone deacetylase 3, leading to cell death. To overcome plant sterility associated with GhJAZ24 overexpression, we developed iJAZ (i, induced), an approach involving damage-induced expression and a switch from intracellular to extracellular localization of GhJAZ24. iJAZ transgenic cotton maintained fertility and showed insecticidal activity against cotton bollworm and FAW. In addition, iJAZ transgenic rice, maize and tobacco plants showed insecticidal activity against their lepidopteran pests, resulting in an iJAZ-based approach for generating alternative insecticidal proteins with distinctive mechanisms of action, thus holding immense potential for future crop engineering