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Over-expression of Arabidopsis thaliana SFD1/GLY1, the gene encoding plastid localized glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, increases plastidic lipid content in transgenic rice plants

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Abstract

Lipids are the major constituents of all membranous structures in plants. Plants possess two pathways for lipid biosynthesis: the prokaryotic pathway (i.e., plastidic pathway) and the eukaryotic pathway (i.e., endoplasmic-reticulum (ER) pathway). Whereas some plants synthesize galactolipids from diacylglycerol assembled in the plastid, others, including rice, derive their galactolipids from diacylglycerols assembled by the eukaryotic pathway. Arabidopsis thaliana glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (G3pDH), coded by SUPPRESSOR OF FATTY ACID DESATURASE 1 (SFD1; alias GLY1) gene, catalyzes the formation of glycerol 3-phosphate (G3p), the backbone of many membrane lipids. Here SFD1 was introduced to rice as a transgene. Arabidopsis SFD1 localizes in rice plastids and its over-expression increases plastidic membrane lipid content in transgenic rice plants without any major impact on ER lipids. The results suggest that over-expression of plastidic G3pDH enhances biosynthesis of plastid-localized lipids in rice. Lipid composition in the transgenic plants is consistent with increased phosphatidylglycerol synthesis in the plastid and increased galactolipid synthesis from diacylglycerol produced via the ER pathway. The transgenic plants show a higher photosynthetic assimilation rate, suggesting a possible application of this finding in crop improvement.

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Abbreviations

DAG:

Diacylglycerol

DGDG:

Digalactosyldiacylglycerol

ER:

Endoplasmic reticulum

FA:

Fatty acid

GLC:

Gas–liquid chromatography

G3p:

Glycerol 3-phosphate

G3pDH:

Glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase

IRGA:

Infrared gas analyzer

MGDG:

Monogalactosyldiacylglycerol

PC:

Phosphatidylcholine

PE:

Phosphatidylethanolamine

PG:

Phosphatidylglycerol

PI:

Phosphatidylinositol

SFD1 :

SUPPRESSOR OF FATTY ACID DESATURASE 1

TAG:

Triacylglycerol

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the DST-purse, Capacity Build-up and UGC resource network funds to AKN. SS and ZZB obtained fellowships from CSIR and ICMR respectively. We acknowledge Arabidopsis Biological Resource Centre, Ohio State University, USA for SFD1 cDNA. The lipid profile data were acquired at Kansas Lipidomics Research Center (KLRC). We thank Mary Roth of KLRC for her technical work and Ruth Welti for critical reading and editing of the manuscript. Instrument acquisition and method development at KLRC were supported by NSF grants MCB 0455318, MCB 0920663, DBI 0521587, DBI 1228622, Kansas INBRE (P20 GM103418 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences), NSF EPSCoR grant EPS-0236913, Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, and Kansas State University. We also acknowledge B.C. Tripathy and Amarchand Kunawat for help in photosynthesis related experiments and Tripti Panwar for help in microscopy.

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  1. Praveen Kumar Singh

    Present address: Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, ZSM, Karl-von-Frisch-Strasse 16, 35043, Marburg, Germany

  2. Subaran Singh

    Present address: ICAR-Directorate of Rapeseed-Mustard Research, Bharatpur, 321303, Rajasthan, India

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 415, New Delhi, 110067, India

    Vijayata Singh, Praveen Kumar Singh, Adnan Siddiqui, Subaran Singh, Zeeshan Zahoor Banday & Ashis Kumar Nandi

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Correspondence to Ashis Kumar Nandi.

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V. Singh and P. K. Singh contributed equally.

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Singh, V., Singh, P.K., Siddiqui, A. et al. Over-expression of Arabidopsis thaliana SFD1/GLY1, the gene encoding plastid localized glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, increases plastidic lipid content in transgenic rice plants. J Plant Res 129, 285–293 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-015-0781-0

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