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Overexpression of SmLEA enhances salt and drought tolerance in Escherichia coli and Salvia miltiorrhiza

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Abstract

Salinity and drought are important abiotic stresses limiting plant growth and development. Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are a group of proteins associated with tolerance to water-related stress. We previously cloned an LEA gene, SmLEA, from Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that SmLEA belongs to Group LEA14, which is involved in the dehydration response. To determine its function in detail, we have now overexpressed SmLEA in Escherichia coli and S. miltiorrhiza. The logarithmic increase in accumulations of SmLEA proteins in E. coli occurred earlier under salinity than under standard conditions. SmLEA-transformed S. miltiorrhiza plants also showed faster root elongation and a lower malondialdehyde concentration than the empty vector control plants did when cultured on MS media supplemented with 60 mM NaCl or 150 mM mannitol. Moreover, SmLEA-overexpressing transgenics experienced a less rapid rate of water loss. Under either salinity or drought, overexpressing plants had greater superoxide dismutase activity and a higher glutathione concentration. These results suggest that SmLEA may be useful in efforts to improve drought and salinity tolerance in S. miltiorrhiza. Our data also provide a good foundation for further studies into the stress resistance mechanism and molecular breeding of this valuable medicinal plant.

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Acknowledgments

This work benefited from financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China (2012JQ4013) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31300256).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Medicinal Resource and Natural Pharmaceutical Chemistry of Ministry of Education, National Engineering Laboratory for Resource Developing of Endangered Chinese Crude Drug in Northwest of China, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710062, People’s Republic of China

    Yucui Wu, Congling Liu, Jing Kuang, Qian Ge, Yuan Zhang & Zhezhi Wang

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  1. Yucui Wu
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  2. Congling Liu
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  3. Jing Kuang
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  4. Qian Ge
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  5. Yuan Zhang
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  6. Zhezhi Wang
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Correspondence to Zhezhi Wang.

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Wu, Y., Liu, C., Kuang, J. et al. Overexpression of SmLEA enhances salt and drought tolerance in Escherichia coli and Salvia miltiorrhiza . Protoplasma 251, 1191–1199 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-014-0626-z

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