Journal of Oil Palm Research Vol. 26 (3) September 2014, p. 265-269

ISOLATION OF A PARTIAL cDNA CLONE CODING FOR Ganoderma boninense pde

OMAR A RASID*; FOOK-HWA LIM*; NOR FAKHRANA ISKANDAR*; IDRIS ABU SEMAN* and GHULAM KADIR AHMAD PARVEEZ*

ABSTRACT

Ganoderma is white rot fungus that causes a major disease in oil palm. Control measures that have been introduced have not been able to curb the disease effectively. Efforts are underway to uncover more information on the Ganoderma-oil palm interaction, especially at the molecular level. During plant infection, a few genes are highly expressed in fungus and have been suggested to be related or involved in fungal pathogenicity. One of these genes is the phospholipid-transporting ATPase (pde). In Magnaporthe grisea, its protein has been suggested to be associated with hyphae development and proliferation. Degenerate primers were designed based on the conserved regions of the gene. These primers were successfully used to amplify a 544 bp cDNA fragment from Ganoderma boninense. DNA sequence analysis showed the fragment has about 80% similarity to other plant pathogenic fungus pde genes.

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* Malaysian Palm Oil Board, 6 Persiaran Institusi, Bandar Baru Bangi, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.
E-mail: omar@mpob.gov.my