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Overexpression of a Panax ginseng tonoplast aquaporin alters salt tolerance, drought tolerance and cold acclimation ability in transgenic Arabidopsis plants

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Abstract

Water movement across cellular membranes is regulated largely by a family of water channel proteins called aquaporins (AQPs). Since several abiotic stresses such as, drought, salinity and freezing, manifest themselves via altering water status of plant cells and are linked by the fact that they all result in cellular dehydration, we overexpressed an AQP (tonoplast intrinsic protein) from Panax ginseng, PgTIP1, in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana plants to test its role in plant’s response to drought, salinity and cold acclimation (induced freezing tolerance). Under favorable conditions, PgTIP1 overexpression significantly increased plant growth as determined by the biomass production, and leaf and root morphology. PgTIP1 overexpression had beneficial effect on salt-stress tolerance as indicated by superior growth status and seed germination of transgenic plants under salt stress; shoots of salt-stressed transgenic plants also accumulated greater amounts of Na+ compared to wild-type plants. Whereas PgTIP1 overexpression diminished the water-deficit tolerance of plants grown in shallow (10 cm deep) pots, the transgenic plants were significantly more tolerant to water stress when grown in 45 cm deep pots. The rationale for this contrasting response, apparently, comes from the differences in the root morphology and leaf water channel activity (speed of dehydration/rehydration) between the transgenic and wild-type plants. Plants overexpressed with PgTIP1 exhibited lower (relative to wild-type control) cold acclimation ability; however, this response was independent of cold-regulated gene expression. Our results demonstrate a significant function of PgTIP1 in growth and development of plant cells, and suggest that the water movement across tonoplast (via AQP) represents a rate-limiting factor for plant vigor under favorable growth conditions and also significantly affect responses of plant to drought, salt and cold stresses.

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Abbreviations

AQPs:

Aquaporins

CA:

Cold acclimation

MIP:

Major intrinsic protein

PgTIP1-OXP:

Arabidopsis plants overexpressed with PgTIP1

PIPs:

Plasma membrane intrinsic proteins

TIPs:

Tonoplast intrinsic proteins

cor:

Cold regulated

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Acknowledgments

This journal paper of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa (Project 3601) was supported by Hatch Act and State of Iowa funds. We thank Dr Mark Westgate (Department of Agronomy, ISU) for helpful and stimulating discussions during the course of drought stress experiments and gratefully acknowledge the technical advice and instrumentation help by Dr Henry Taber (Department of Horticulture, ISU) for elemental analysis of leaf tissues. We also thank Wayne Shyy and Dr Anania Fessehaie (Seed Science Center, ISU) for their assistance with real time-PCR experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Horticulture, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Yanhui Peng & Rajeev Arora

  2. Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200032, China

    Wuling Lin & Weiming Cai

  3. Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Wuling Lin

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  1. Yanhui Peng
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  2. Wuling Lin
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  4. Rajeev Arora
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Correspondence to Rajeev Arora.

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Peng, Y., Lin, W., Cai, W. et al. Overexpression of a Panax ginseng tonoplast aquaporin alters salt tolerance, drought tolerance and cold acclimation ability in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Planta 226, 729–740 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-007-0520-4

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