Effect of the vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter transgene in a rice landrace and a commercial rice cultivar after its insertion by crossing

Abstract

The vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter is known to alleviate saline stress by sequestering Na+ in both wild-type Arabidopsis and rice and when over-expressed in many transgenic plants. Here we report on the effect of the NHX1 transgene on the salt tolerance properties it confers to a rice landrace and a commercial cultivar suitable for the dry winter season, but which suffers loss due to seasonal stresses, particularly in the coastal areas. The Nipponbare Na+/H+ antiporter 1.9 kb cDNA was cloned into pCAMBIA1305.1 under the control of the CaMV35S promoter and transformed into tissue-culture-responsive rice landrace Binnatoa (BA). The best-expressing transgenic line at T2 was found to be significantly tolerant at the seedling stage and was advanced to T3. The transgene was then transferred to the tissue-culture recalcitrant farmer-popular commercial rice genotype, BRRIdhan 28 (BR28) by crossing. The data generated both from semi-quantitative RT-PCR and western blot hybridization revealed that the transgene showed similar expression in the crossbred BR28 plants and BA transgenic line. Comparative stress tolerance tests, however, revealed that the BR28 crossbred lines were significantly less tolerant than its transgenic parent BA at both seedling and reproductive stages. A single successful transgenic event may therefore not show the same performance in the recipient genetic background, if introgressed by crossing.