Full Length Research Paper

Cloning and functional characterization of a class III chitinase gene from grapevine: Inhibition of fungal growth by recombinant VvChiF III

S.A. Salami¹*, A. Ebadi¹, M.R. Naghavi² and I.B. Dry³

¹Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Horticultural Sciences and Plant Protection, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.

²Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Karaj 31587, Iran.

³CSIRO Plant Industry, PO Box 350, Glen Osmond SA 5064, Australia.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: asalami@ut.ac.ir. Tel: +982612248721.

 Accepted 20 October, 2008

To characterize the structure and function of chitinase genes, a class III chitinase gene (VvChiF III) was isolated from Vitis vinifera cv. Flame seedless. The VvChiF III open reading frame comprised 894 nucleotides with no introns and encoded a protein of 297 amino acids. The amino acid sequence encoded by VvChiF III showed a high identity to that of a class III chitinase isolated from V. vinifera cv.  Koshu and to other acidic chitinases. Analysis of the VvChiF III amino acid sequence showed that this gene corresponds to the Glyco-hydro-18 super family that consisting of a signal peptide with the length of 25 amino acids. Purified VvChiF III showed chitinase activity toward the soluble substrate, glycolchitin and antifungal activity against Botrytis cinerea.

Key words: Vitis, chitinase genes, recombinant protein, antifungal activity, SNPs.