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Background  Coffee is an important crop and is crucial to the economy of many developing countries, generating around US$70 billion per year. There are 115 species in the  Coffea  genus, but only two,  C. arabica  and  C. canephora , are commercially cultivated. Coffee plants are attacked by many pathogens and insect-pests, which affect not only the production of coffee but also its grain quality, reducing the commercial value of the product. The main insect-pest, the coffee berry borer ( Hypotheneumus hampei ), is responsible for worldwide annual losses of around US$500 million. The coffee berry borer exclusively damages the coffee berries, and it is mainly controlled by organochlorine insecticides that are both toxic and carcinogenic. Unfortunately, natural resistance in the genus  Coffea  to  H. hampei  has not been documented. To overcome these problems, biotechnological strategies can be used to introduce an α-amylase inhibitor gene ( α-AI1 ), which confers resistance against the coffee berry borer insect-pest, into  C. arabica  plants.    Results  We transformed  C. arabica  with the α-amylase inhibitor-1 gene (α -AI1 ) from the common bean,  Phaseolus vulgaris , under control of the seed-specific phytohemagglutinin promoter (PHA-L). The presence of the α -AI1  gene in six regenerated transgenic T1 coffee plants was identified by PCR and Southern blotting. Immunoblotting and ELISA experiments using antibodies against α-AI1 inhibitor showed a maximum α-AI1 concentration of 0.29% in crude seed extracts. Inhibitory  in vitro  assays of the α-AI1 protein against  H. hampei  α-amylases in transgenic seed extracts showed up to 88% inhibition of enzyme activity.    Conclusions  This is the first report showing the production of transgenic coffee plants with the biotechnological potential to control the coffee berry borer, the most important insect-pest of crop coffee.

α-Amylase inhibitor-1 gene from Phaseolus vulgaris expressed in Coffea arabicaplants inhibits α-amylases from the coffee berry borer pest