A 2191-bp open reading fragment of CaNPR1 (GenBank:
DQ648785.1) was amplified using the following primers: CaNPR1
forward 5
-CAAAAAAAT GGCAAACTC TCT C-3 and CaNPR1 reverse
5
-TTT TAA GTA AAA TTC TCT TCT TTC AAA GTC GT-3 from cDNA of
healthy leaves from 10 day old bell pepper plants. The resulting
fragment was then cloned into CaMV 35S-promoter-IntronGUSNos
poly-A terminator (Vancanneyt et al., 1990) of binary vector
pCAMBIA1301. The authenticity ofthe above construct was verified
by sequencing of the cloned gene fragment. Agrobacterium tumefaciens
strain, EHA105 (Hood et al., 1986) was transformed with the
above vector and positive colony was streaked onto LB plate with
appropriate antibiotic selection. The plates were incubated at 28 ◦C
for 2 days, then a single A. tumefaciens colony was re-suspended
into 3 ml LB broth supplemented with appropriate antibiotics and
cultured in shaker incubator (230 rpm) at 28 ◦C for 16 h. Overnight
grown culture was added to 100 ml of freshly prepared Winans’ AB
minimal media (Winans et al., 1988) supplemented with appropriate
antibiotics. The culture was incubated on a shaker incubator
(230 rpm) at 28 ◦C for 18 h or till the optical density (OD600) of
1.2–1.5 was obtained. Finally, for virulence gene induction, 4–5 ml
of freshly prepared wounded tobacco leaf extract was added to
the A. tumefaciens culture and incubated on a shaker incubator
(230 rpm) at 28 ◦C for 5 h.