Plants exhibit defense against pathogen attacks as they are surrounded by numerous microbes throughout the life. Oriental lily‘Stargazer’produces defense protein LsGRP1 in the leaves capable of killing pathogens and activating defense responses of monocots and dicots. This defense protein enables plant growth under pathogen-free condition and immediately acts as a powerful defensive weapon while pathogens present, revealing a mechanism of growth-defense tradeoffs. LsGRP1 expressed by an optimized E. coli system can protect plants from kinds of diseases via dual defense function, such as lily gray mold, strawberry gray mold and anthracnose etc. Gray mold is a key disease for lily, strawberry, and many economically important crops, and these years, anthracnose severely damages strawberry production. We hope to use LsGRP1-dependent strategy to control plant diseases and achieve win-win disease management for crop production with high economic value and the environmental protection.

The critical role of a plant defense gene LsGRP1 from Lilium is verified by a new developed virus-induced gene silencing and adaptive Agrobacterium infiltration methods. This antimicrobial LsGRP1 can be produced by a specified E. coli system and kept its dual functions of antimicrobial and induced disease resistance activities. The protective effects and requirement for application of LsGRP1 and its derived products are verified.

1. LsGRP1 can be applied in agriculture, biomedical and environmental sanitation. 
2. LsGRP1 can control plant diseases by killing pathogens and activating immunity in cooperative mode.
3. The microbial expression system of LsGRP1 can be applied for the productions of other antimicrobial proteins and peptides. 
4. The Agrobacterium-mediated virus-induced gene silencing system can be used to accelerate the functional study of the genes of flower bulbs and the commercial development.