Molecular Biology Reports

, Volume 38, Issue 3, pp 1557–1566 | Cite as

Ascorbic acid contents in transgenic potato plants overexpressing two dehydroascorbate reductase genes

Article
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Abstract

Ascorbic acid (AsA, vitamin C) is one of the most important nutritional quality factors in many horticultural crops and has many biological activities in the human body. Dehydroascorbate reductase (EC 1.8.5.1; DHAR) plays an important role in maintaining the normal level of ascorbic acid (AsA) by recycling oxidized ascorbic acid. To increase AsA content of potato, we isolated and characterized the cDNAs encoding two isoform DHARs localized in cytosol and chloroplast from potato, and developed two types of transgenic potato plants overexpressing cytosolic DHAR gene and chloroplastic DHAR, respectively. Incorporation of the transgene in the genome of potato was confirmed by PCR and real time RT-PCR. The overexpression of cytosolic DHAR significantly increased DHAR activities and AsA contents in potato leaves and tubers, whereas chloroplastic DHAR overexpression only increased DHAR activities and AsA contents in leaves, and did not change them in tubers. These results indicated that AsA content of potato can be elevated by enhancing recycling ascorbate via DHAR overexpression, moreover, cytosolic DHAR might play main important roles in improving the AsA contents of potato tubers.

Keywords

Potato Dehydroascorbate reductase Ascorbic acid Overexpression chloroplast Cytosol 
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Notes

Acknowledgment

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30771473) and Key Laboratory of Horticultural Crops Genetic Improvement, Ministry of Agriculture.

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© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Institute of Vegetables and FlowersChinese Academy of Agricultural SciencesBeijingChina
  2. 2.State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, College of Horticulture Science and EngineeringShandong Agricultural UniversityTaianChina

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