Abstract
E3 ligase plays an important role in the response to many environment stresses in plants. In our previous study, constitutive overexpression of an F-box protein gene TaFBA1 driven by 35S promoter improved the drought tolerance in transgenic tobacco plants, but the growth and development in transgenic plants was altered in normal conditions. In this study, we used stress-inducible promoter RD29A instead of 35S promoter, as a results, the stress-inducible transgenic tobacco plants exhibit a similar phenotype with wild type (WT) plants. However, the drought tolerance of the transgenic plants with stress-inducible expressed TaFBA1 was enhanced. The improved drought tolerance of transgenic plants was indicated by their higher seed germination rate and survival rate, greater biomass and photosynthesis than those of WT under water stress, which may be related to their greater water retention capability and osmotic adjustment. Moreover, the transgenic plants accumulated less reactive oxygen species, kept lower MDA content and membrane leakage under water stress, which may be related to their higher levels of antioxidant enzyme activity and upregulated gene expression of some antioxidant enzymes. These results suggest that stress induced expression of TaFBA1 confers drought tolerance via the improved water retention and antioxidative compete ability. Meanwhile, this stress-inducible expression strategy by RD29A promoter can minimize the unexpectable effects by 35S constitutive promoter on phenotypes of the transgenic plants.
Highlights
Abiotic stresses are the major limiting factors in plant growth and development, and can greatly affect crop production
Homozygous progeny of three transgenic lines RD29A::TaFBA1 (RF-3, RF-4, RF-9), 35S::TaFBA1(T3, T8) and wild type (WT) tobacco plants were used
TaFBA1 expression driven by RD29A promoter was increased during drought stress treatment (Figure 1C)
Summary
Abiotic stresses are the major limiting factors in plant growth and development, and can greatly affect crop production. Drought is one of the most common forms among abiotic stresses. Plants can response and adapt these stresses by many kinds of ways. Many genes may be up- or down- regulated to maintain the growth of plants under drought stress (Farooq et al, 2009). Lots of drought-related proteins accumulate to protect plants from the damage of deficit stress conditions (Bu et al, 2014). The responses of plants to drought are relatively widely considered, the molecular mechanisms of plant adaptation to drought are still fragmentary
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