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Heterologous expression of two Physcomitrella patens group 3 late embryogenesis abundant protein (LEA3) genes confers salinity tolerance in arabidopsis

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Abstract

Salinity stress is a major limiting factor in agriculture and adversely affecting the whole plant. As a halophyte, the moss Physcomitrella patens, has been suggested to be an ideal model plant to study salinity tolerance and adaption. Two abiotic stress-responsive Group 3 Late Embryogenesis Abundant protein genes had been identified in P. patens and named as PpLEA3-1 and PpLEA3-2, respectively. Functions of these two genes were analyzed by heterologous expressions in Arabidopsis, driven either by their native P. patens promoters or by the 35S CaMV constitutive promoter. Phenotype analysis revealed that pLEA3::LEA3, pLEA3::LEA3::GFP and 35S::LEA3::GFP transgenic lines had stronger salinity resistance than that in the wild type and empty-vector control. Further analysis showed that the contents of proline and soluble sugar were increased and the malondialdehyde (MDA) were repressed in these transgenic plants after exposure to salinity stress. Our observations indicate that these two Group 3 PpLEA genes played a role in the adaption to salinity stress.

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  1. College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, PR China

    Jing Du, Lei Wang, Xiaochen Zhang, Xuan Xiao, Fang Wang, Pingliang Lin, Fang Bao, Yong Hu & Yikun He

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  1. Jing Du
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  2. Lei Wang
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  3. Xiaochen Zhang
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Du, J., Wang, L., Zhang, X. et al. Heterologous expression of two Physcomitrella patens group 3 late embryogenesis abundant protein (LEA3) genes confers salinity tolerance in arabidopsis. J. Plant Biol. 59, 182–193 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12374-016-0565-7

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