Abstract
Trehalose is a non-reducing disaccharide of glucose that confers tolerance against abiotic stresses in many diverse organisms, including higher plants. It was previously reported that overexpression of the yeast trehalose-6-phosphate synthase gene in tomato results in improved tolerance against abiotic stresses. However, these transgenic tomato plants had stunted growth and pleiotropic changes in appearance. In this study, transgenic tomato plants were generated by the introduction of a gene encoding a bifunctional fusion of trehalose-6-phosphate synthase and trehalose-6-phosphate phosphatase genes from Escherichia coli under the control of the CaMV35S promoter. Transgenic plants accumulated higher levels of trehalose in their leaves and exhibited enhanced drought and salt tolerance and photosynthetic rates under salt stress conditions than wild-type plants. All of the transgenic plants had normal growth patterns and appearances. Therefore, the system described in this study can be used for practical application of the gene in crop improvement.
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Abbreviations
- TPP:
-
Trehalose-6-phosphate phosphatase
- TPS:
-
Trehalose-6-phosphate synthase
- TPSP:
-
TPS/TPP fusion gene
- MS:
-
Murashige and Skoog
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by a grant from the Marine Extreme Genome Research Center funded by the Korean Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, a grant from the Advanced Biomass R&D Center of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (ABC-2010-0029723), and a grant from the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology for the Development of Cell Factory for Biomass and Bioenergy to J.R.L.
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J. I. Lyu and S. R. Min contributed equally to this work.
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Lyu, J.I., Min, S.R., Lee, J.H. et al. Overexpression of a trehalose-6-phosphate synthase/phosphatase fusion gene enhances tolerance and photosynthesis during drought and salt stress without growth aberrations in tomato. Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 112, 257–262 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-012-0225-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-012-0225-7