Characterization of trehalose-6-phosphate synthase and Na+/H+ antiporter genes in Vuralia turcica and expression analysis under salt and cadmium stresses.

Dilek Tekdal

doi:10.1590/0001-3765202120200252

Abstract

Vuralia turcica (Fabaceae; Papilionoideae) is a critically endangered endemic plant species in Turkey. This plant grows naturally in saline environments, although the photosynthesis and physiological functions of many plants are affected by salt stress. Molecular control mechanisms and identification of genes involved in these mechanisms constitute the critical field of study in plant science. Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) is one of the essential enzyme genes involved in trehalose biosynthesis, which is protective against salt stress. Also, the vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter gene (NHX) is known to be useful in salt tolerance. In this study, the TPS and NHX-like genes in V. turcica were partially sequenced using degenerate primers for the first time and submitted to the NCBI database (accession numbers MK120983 and MH757417, respectively). Also, the expression levels of the genes encoding TPS and NHX were investigated. The results indicate that the increase in both the level of applied salt and cadmium is coupled with the increase in the expression level of NHX and TPS genes. However, salt exposure significantly affected the expression level of the NHX gene. The findings suggest that the NHX gene might play a crucial role in the salt tolerance ability of V. turcica.

Highlights

Salt stress is an often encountered problem in agriculture that decreases yield by enabling healthy plant growth (Zhu 2001)
Genomic DNAs that were needed for Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) and NHX gene identification were isolated from the leaves of NaCl- and Cd-treated V. turcica and non-treated V. turcica successfully
GDNAs were used as the template for PCR-based amplification using degenerate primers designed to TPS and NHX genes using conserved regions of TPS and NHX mRNAs available in the GenBank database (Table I)

Summary

Introduction

Salt stress is an often encountered problem in agriculture that decreases yield by enabling healthy plant growth (Zhu 2001). Trehalose (α-D-glucopyranosyl-1,1-α-Dglucopyranoside) is one of the significant carbohydrate stores in plants in a large variety of microorganisms such as yeast and animals Various organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, and invertebrates, contain genes that enable them to produce trehalose endogenously (Elbein et al 2003). Trehalose is a non-reducible disaccharide composed of two glucose units and provides rapid adaptations to an organism under various environmental conditions, and has a significant role in glucose uptake. It functions as an osmoprotectant (Elbein 1974, Crowe et al 1984). TPS gene was successfully transferred to tomato, potato, and tobacco plants to obtain stress-tolerant species, especially against drought

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion