Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

COMPARATIVE GENOMICS ANALYSIS OF THE PATHOGENESISRELATED (PR) GENES ON TWO BANANA GENOMES (A AND B GENOMES) IN RESPONSE TO BANANA BLOOD DISEASE INFECTION

Kenzie Sachisiva Anindita, Popi Septiani and Fenny Martha Dwivany

Abstract

Banana (Musa spp.) is one the most important food commodity in many tropical and subtropical countries. In the recent decades, banana production has been severely hindered by several diseases. Banana Blood Disease caused by Ralstonia syzygii, has become one of the main threats for banana (Musa spp.) production in Indonesia. An alternative to overcome the problem arising from plant disease is to develop a plant which is tolerant to a pathogen infection. Tolerant plant can be developed by utilizing genes which are responsible in defense mechanism to response pathogen infection. Some studies reported that Pathogenesis Related (PR) proteins encoded by PR gene family were accumulated in plant tissue during pathogen infection. The presence of these protein indicate its role in self-defense response in some plant model organisms. In this study, we aim to characterize some PR gene family including PR1, PR2, PR3, PR4, and PR5 in two different banana, Musa acuminata cv. Pahang (AA group) and Musa balbisiana cv. Klutuk Wulung (BB group), possessing different genomes (A and B genomes) by comparative genomic analysis. We reported that each corresponding PR genes from those species have been predicted to have the same number of exons and introns with high level of similarity ranging from 76.5-96.2% and its protein > 79%. The abundance of Cis-acting regulatory elements whose role as a light-responsive are dominant in each PR gene. The protein sequences of each PR genes shared the same domain associated to defense mechanism. The result from gene ontology search, showed that each PR genes have biological activities and molecular function in defense against invading pathogens. The Phylogenetic analysis showed that Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana taxa is closely related to each other and clustered in a big clade with other monocots species. The result of this study suggested that PR genes are important to be further investigated as potential markers in developing resistant banana against Blood Disease.