Question

How can one do plant breeding for developing resistance to insect pests? Give a few examples to insect resistance characteristics. Also mention the source of pest resistance genes.

Answer 1

Insects are one of the major biotic stresses for plants and hence needs to be eradicatyd. One of the methods is developing plants or plant breeding with development of resistance against insect pests.

Plant breeding is the technology in which we can alter the traits of plants by deleting, modifying or adding the desired genes.

I order to get insect resistance plants we need to do genetic engineering with the plant similar to the one done for BT corn

We will study the plant breeding for insect resistance with the example of BT in Corn Confers Resistance to European Corn Borers. Due to which the corns are resistant to European corn borers (ECB).

For this process, first of all we will isolate gene BT from Bacillus thuringiensis.

For development of transgenic of any crop, following steps are involved

: (a) Identification of effective gene or genes,

(b) Gene transfer technology,

(c) Regeneration ability from protoplasts, callus or tissues,

(d) Gene expression of the product at desired level,

(e) Proper integration of genes so that are carried for generations by usual means of reproduction.

After the selection of gene it will be introduced into the immature corn embryos by biolistic approach using gene gun. and then the other steps were perfomed precisely.