L. Hadwiger
Feb 12, 2015
Citations
0
Influential Citations
5
Citations
Journal
Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine
Abstract
Being in the terminal phase of my scientific career I am grabbing the literary license to tell a story of the discovery of two biological properties of chitosan, namely, its gene activating potential [1] and its anti-microbial properties [2]. The geneticist, Gregor Mendel, selected peas as a genetic tool and I garnered a pea pod system from an Australian pathologist, I.A.M. Cruickshank, as a biological tool [3]. When the immature pea pod is split, the epidermal cell layer surface, the endocarp is temporarily exposed without a cuticle layer. Thus these naked, undamaged cells rapidly respond to foreign cell, macromolecules, UV radiation, fungal spores of plant pathogens, to initiate (or not initate) the synthesis of an antifungal isoflavonoid called pisatin. The accumulation of this easily quantitated product is associated with many of the plant immune responses such as the activation of genes coding for enzymes in a secondary pathway and pea defense genes termed DRR genes and later were called pathogenesis-related or PR genes.