Plant growth and development influenced by transgenic insertion of bacterial chitinolytic enzymes

The role of the chitinolytic enzymes in plants is not necessarilyrestricted to plant defense. Tomato plants transformed with an endochitinaseand a chitobiosidase gene from Streptomyces albidoflavus andgrowth under greenhouse conditions showed a significant reduction in plantheight, and reduced time to flowering compared with the control(non-transformed) plants. The levels of chitobiosidase and endochitinaseactivity in the transgenic tomato plants were positively correlated with earlyflowering, and negatively correlated with plant height. We have not determinedwhether these effects are exclusively due to the expression of the transgenesof endochitinase and chitobiosidase from S. albidoflavus orthe additive effect of these 2 enzymes combined with the endogenouschitinolytic enzymes produced by the plants. However, when control plants were trimmed,early flowering was observed compared with the controls that were not trimmed, whichindicates that wound induced proteins such as chitinolytic enzymes affect thetime of flowering. In addition, the expression of the endochitinase andchitobiosidase genes significantly increased the number of flowers and fruit onthe plants, resulting in an increase in yield of fruit. One of the primarygoals of crop breeding programs is to increase the productivity of plants. These twogenes were directly associated with plant productivity, and should be studied further.