Abstract

                                The biochemical and metabolic profiles of transgenic banana (Musa spp.) plants developed through RNAi technology for expressing resistance to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense race 1 were characterized by using gas chromatography coupled to electron impact ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (GC/EITOF-MS). A total of twenty-two metabolites were identified and annotated using NIST data library. Several resistance related metabolites such as 13-docosenamide, 9-octadecenamide, 9-octadecene, n-hexadecanoic acid, oleic acid, 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, 2,4,6-decatrienoic acid, 1 bis (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, methyl abietate, undecanedioic acid, 2-pentadecanone, methyl palmitate and phenols were detected in transgenic plants which were generated to silence two fungal genes viz., ftf1 and/or velvet through RNAi technology. The induction of defense related enzyme activities such as phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) were also observed. The defense related enzyme activities were higher in transformed plants than untransformed plants. However, these differences did not cause any unintended changes in the growth of transgenic banana plant.

Key words : Transgenic banana; Ftf1 gene; Velvet gene; RNAi; Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense race 1; GC/EITOF-MS