Plant proteinase inhibitors (PIs) are antimetabolic defensive proteins conferring resistance in plants against a variety of competing organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, attacking nematodes, and insects. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2013) 37: 1-10 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article In vitro and in silico characterization of Solanum lycopersicum wound-inducible proteinase inhibitor-II gene 1 2 3, Faiza MUNIR , Syed Muhammad Saqlan NAQVI , Tariq MAHMOOD * Department of Biotechnology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 2 Department of Biochemistry, University of Arid Agriculture, Rawalpindi, Pakistan 3 Department of Plant Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan 1 Received: Accepted: Published Online: Printed: Abstract: Plant proteinase inhibitors (PIs) are antimetabolic defensive proteins conferring resistance in plants against a variety of competing organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, attacking nematodes, and insects. In the fields of plant biochemistry and molecular genetics research, tremendous success has been achieved in generating transgenic crops that have defensive approaches against biotic challenges. In this study, in vitro and in silico analysis was carried out for a wound-inducible PI-II gene isolated from 4 selected varieties (Roma, Nagina, Moneymaker, and Rio Grande) of Solanum lycopersicum L. Around 684 bp of PI-II gene was amplified, sequenced, translated, modeled to protein structure, and phylogenetically analyzed. The sequence analysis by BLAST showed high similarity scores (99%, 97%, 96%, and 94%) for Moneymaker, Roma, Rio Grande, and Nagina, respectively, with the original PI-II gene sequence from Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme (GenBank accession no. AY007240) selected for primer designing. Sequenced data were translated to protein sequences, and translated sequences were modeled to 3-dimensional structures with iterative threading assembly refinement (I-Tasser) software. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out using Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis software. Comparative phylogenetic
