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Arabidopsis HOG1 gene and its petunia homolog PETCBP act as key regulators of yield parameters

  • Genetic Transformation and Hybridization
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Abstract

Plant hormones influence the key parameters that contribute to crop yield, including biomass, branching and seed number. We tested manipulation of cytokinin signaling as an avenue for influencing these growth parameters. Here we report a full-length cDNA coding for a cytokinin binding protein, Petunia cytokinin binding protein (PETCBP) from Petunia hybrida cv. Mitchell. PETCBP encodes for a protein that exhibits high sequence similarity to S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine hydrolase (SAHH). Transgenic petunia plants expressing this gene in antisense orientation displayed profuse branching, delayed flowering and delayed shoot bud induction from leaf explants in vitro. Homologs were also isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana homology-dependent gene silencing 1 (HOG1) and Orzya sativa (OsCBP). Arabidopsis HOG1 showed high affinity cytokinin binding activity and modified plant architecture similar to PETCBP. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing HOG1 showed early flowering with a significantly reduced plant biomass and number of leaves. In contrast, profuse branching, delayed flowering, increased leaf size and higher seed yield were the major phenotypes observed in the antisense suppression lines. These results suggest that genetic manipulation of this cytokinin binding protein or its orthologs could be used for improving crop biomass and seed yield.

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Abbreviations

HOG1 :

Homology-dependent gene silencing1

PETCBP :

Petunia cytokinin binding protein

SAHH:

S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine hydrolase

OsCBP :

Orzya sativa cytokinin binding protein

ETR1 :

Ethylene response gene

AHK:

Arabidopsis histidine kinase

ARR:

Arabidopsis response regulator

CBP57 :

Cytokinin binding protein 57

BA:

Benzyladenine

NAA:

α-Naphthaleneacetic acid

iP:

Isopentenyl adenine

TAP tag:

Tandem affinity purification tag

DMSO:

Dimethylsulfoxide

WT:

Wild type

AS:

Antisense

OE:

Overexpression

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Y Banerjee for help with ITC; Mr. R Nandhakishore for independent verification of ITC data; Drs. EM Meyerowitz, G Anand, RM Kini, NS Sodhi, S Swarup and H Yu for helpful discussions and critical reading of an earlier version of the manuscript. Financial assistance was provided by the National University of Singapore in the form of a research grant R-154-000-251-112 to PPK and research scholarships to MRG and BDK.

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Author notes

  1. Dhinoth Kumar

    Present address: Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117543, Singapore

    Mandar R. Godge, Dhinoth Kumar & Prakash P. Kumar

  2. Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, National University of Singapore, 1 Research Link, Singapore, 117604, Singapore

    Prakash P. Kumar

Authors
  1. Mandar R. Godge
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  2. Dhinoth Kumar
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  3. Prakash P. Kumar
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Correspondence to Prakash P. Kumar.

Additional information

Communicated by P. Lakshmanan.

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299_2008_576_MOESM1_ESM.doc

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Godge, M.R., Kumar, D. & Kumar, P.P. Arabidopsis HOG1 gene and its petunia homolog PETCBP act as key regulators of yield parameters. Plant Cell Rep 27, 1497–1507 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-008-0576-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-008-0576-z

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