Genetic engineering of apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) for resistance to fungal diseases using g2ps1 gene from Gerbera hybrida (Asteraceae)

Apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) is one of the most important fruits in temperate zones with a total world production amounted to 76.3 million t/year in 2012 (FAO, 2012). Conventional breeding of apple is very long term and cannot reproduce the desirable qualities of our best commercial varieties and rootstocks. However, genetic transformation is a key process to sustain its demand by permitting the potential enhancement of existing cultivars as well as the development of new cultivars resistant to pests, diseases, and storage problems that occur in the major production areas (Polanco et al. 2010). It offers an attractive alternative to conventional breeding for the creation of resistant varieties since it is faster, can use genes from many sources, and will preserve the desirable qualities of the transformed variety or rootstock. (Aldwinckle et al. 2000). On the other hand, genetically modified (GM) crops have gained ground on their conventional counterparts. Biotech crop hectares increased by an unprecedented 100–fold from 1.7 million hectares in 1996, to over 170 million hectares in 2012. Of about 1.5 billion hectares of arable land worldwide, about 12% were used to plant GM crops in 2012 (James 2013). Gene transfer manipulations are used for genetic modi fication of important characters in apple such as resistance to diseases. Some of these studies included the chosen variaties and rootstocks in the present work. These included genetic transformation of Royal Gala (Hyung et al. 1995, Liu et al. 1998, 2001; DeBondet et al. 1994, 1996; Norlli et al. 1999, Schaart et al. 1995, Puite and Schaart 1996; Yao et al. 1995; Faize et al. 2003, 2004; Liu et al. 1998, 2001), Golden Delicious (Schaart et al. 1995; Puite and Schaart 1996; Maximova et al.1998), M26 (Norlli et al. 1994; Genetic engineering of apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) for resistance to fungal diseases using g2ps1 gene from Gerbera hybrida (Asteraceae)