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Impact of concurrent overexpression of cytosolic glutamine synthetase (GS1) and sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) on growth and development in transgenic tobacco

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Abstract

Main conclusion

The outcome of simultaneously increasing SPS and GS activities in transgenic tobacco, suggests that sucrose is the major determinant of growth and development, and is not affected by changes in N assimilation.

Abstract

Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are the major components required for plant growth and the metabolic pathways for C and N assimilation are very closely interlinked. Maintaining an appropriate balance or ratio of sugar to nitrogen metabolites in the cell, is important for the regulation of plant growth and development. To understand how C and N metabolism interact, we manipulated the expression of key genes in C and N metabolism individually and concurrently and checked for the repercussions. Transgenic tobacco plants with a cytosolic soybean glutamine synthetase (GS1) gene and a sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) gene from maize, both driven by the CaMV 35S promoter were produced. Co-transformants, with both the transgenes were produced by sexual crosses. While GS is the key enzyme in N assimilation, involved in the synthesis of glutamine, SPS plays a key role in C metabolism by catalyzing the synthesis of sucrose. Moreover, to check if nitrate has any role in this interaction, the plants were grown under both low and high nitrogen. The SPS enzyme activity in the SPS and SPS/GS1 co-transformants were the same under both nitrogen regimens. However, the GS activity was lower in the co-transformants compared to the GS1 transformants, specifically under low nitrogen conditions. The GS1/SPS transformants showed a phenotype similar to the SPS transformants, suggesting that sucrose is the major determinant of growth and development in tobacco, and its effect is only marginally affected by increased N assimilation. Sucrose may be functioning in a metabolic capacity or as a signaling molecule.

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Abbreviations

SPS:

Sucrose phosphate synthase

GS1:

Cytosolic glutamine synthetase

Suc:

Sucrose

Glc:

Glucose

Gln:

Glutamine

HN:

High nitrogen

LN:

Low nitrogen

C:

Carbon

N:

Nitrogen

NT:

Non transformed

MzSPS :

Maize SPS gene

Gmgln150 :

Soybean GS1 gene without 3′UTR

GS1/SPS:

Co-transformant with both GS 1 and SPS genes

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Agricultural Experiment Station at New Mexico State University and by the National Institutes of Health (Research Initiative for Scientific Research Enhancement Program), grant number R25GM061222. SG was supported by a scholarship from the Ministry of Higher Education, Egypt and AM is on a NSF GK-12 DISSECT Fellowship. The authors want to thank Dr. Suman Bagga for critical reading of the MS and Kayle Brook-Cirrincione, Jordan Harrison, and Darian Oldham for their technical help.

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  1. Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, 88003, USA

    Mark Seger, Sayed Gebril, Jules Tabilona, Amanda Peel & Champa Sengupta-Gopalan

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  1. Mark Seger
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  2. Sayed Gebril
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Correspondence to Champa Sengupta-Gopalan.

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M. Seger and S. Gebril are the joint first authors.

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Seger, M., Gebril, S., Tabilona, J. et al. Impact of concurrent overexpression of cytosolic glutamine synthetase (GS1) and sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS) on growth and development in transgenic tobacco. Planta 241, 69–81 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-014-2165-4

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