Development of resistance against blackleg disease in Brassica oleracea var. botrytis through in silico methods

Blackleg caused by Leptosphaeria maculans is a very important disease worldwide and causes large yield loss of significant vegetable crops of Brassicaceae family. Absence of resistant 'B' genome in vegetable Brassica oleracea proposed these species susceptible to blackleg disease. We present a specific piece of molecular modelling work, combining in silico docking methods, energy minimization calculations and in silico cloning, to develop a rational peptide as a candidate that functions as a resistance inducing agent against L. maculans in B. oleracea var. botrytis. These studies are based upon predicted interaction sites of isocitrate lyase (ICL) and isocitrate. Inhibition of isocitrate binding to ICL is demonstrated to prevent rescue of glyoxylate cycle that is essential for metabolism of L. maculans in B. oleracea. We have taken the predicted interaction domain from the isocitrate lyase enzyme and randomly generated the best fitting 9-amino acid peptide among various screened peptides.