Abstract
Aquaporins (AQPs) in plants have been shown to facilitate the transport of water and other small molecules through biological membranes. This activity is essential for plant stress management during drought. Here, we describe and characterize a novel aquaporin gene AcNIP5;1 (Atriplex canescens nodulin 26-like intrinsic protein 5;1) isolated from an A. canescens cDNA library. qRT-PCR results indicated that the transcript level in leaf tissue of AcNIP5;1 was upregulated by 20 % PEG 6000 and downregulated by 400 mM NaCl. To further understand the function of AcNIP5;1, we generated transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants that expressed AcNIP5;1 under control of the CaMV35S promoter. The overexpression of AcNIP5;1 in these transgenic Arabidopsis plants resulted in higher drought tolerance and sensitivity to salinity compared to wild-type plants on both MS plate and pot experiments. AcNIP5;1 protein tagged with GFP was localized to the cell plasma membrane in Nicotiana benthamiana. Our results suggest that AcNIP5;1 might play a role in drought tolerance in A. canescens.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Steve Daubert at University of California, Davis, for critical reading of the manuscript. This study is financed by grants from the Twelfth Five Year Plan Project of Science and Technology Support, P.R. China (2014BAD14B02, 2012BAD19B04), the Project from the Ministry of Agriculture Key Projects of GM Cultivation of New Varieties (2013ZX08004004), and the Research and Development of Industrial Technology Special at Jilin Provincial Development and Reform Commission (2013C001).
The Author Contribution
Conceived and designed the experiments: Hongyu Pan, Gang Yu, Jingtao Li; performed the experiments: Jingtao Li, Gang Yu, Xinhua Sun; analyzed the data: Gang Yu, Jingtao Li, Jinliang Liu, Xianghui Zhang; wrote the paper: Gang Yu, Hongyu Pan; contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: others.
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Yu, G., Li, J., Sun, X. et al. Overexpression of AcNIP5;1, a Novel Nodulin-Like Intrinsic Protein from Halophyte Atriplex canescens, Enhances Sensitivity to Salinity and Improves Drought Tolerance in Arabidopsis. Plant Mol Biol Rep 33, 1864–1875 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-015-0881-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-015-0881-y