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Specific Downregulation of the Bacterial-Type PEPC Gene by Artificial MicroRNA Improves Salt Tolerance in Arabidopsis

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Abstract

Although phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylases (PEPC) are reported to be involved in fatty acid accumulation, nitrogen assimilation, and salt and drought stresses, knowledge on the function of PEPC genes is still limited, particularly on the bacterial-type PEPC gene. To investigate the physiological functionality of Atppc4, an Arabidopsis bacterial-type PEPC gene, Atppc4, was specifically suppressed by artificial microRNA (amiRNA) in Arabidopsis. Transgenic plants with constitutively expressed Atppc4-amiRNA exhibited substantially decreased accumulation of Atppc4 transcripts, whereas other three plant-type PEPC genes, Atppc1, Atppc2 and Atppc3, were significantly upregulated in roots. The PEPC activity was improved about 5.1 times in roots of Atppc4-amiRNA transgenic lines. This result indicates that transcription of bacterial-type and plant-type PEPC genes in plants is interacted with each other in plants. The bacterial-type PEPC genes, Atppc4, may play an important role in modulating the transcription of plant-type PEPC genes. The effects of Atppc4 on seed lipid content and fatty acid composition were not detected in this research. This indicated that Atppc4 might be independent of plant lipid accumulation. However, the root development was found to be related with Atppc4. Root elongation of transgenic plants was significantly inhibited. The inhibition can be partially relieved by salt treatment. The results showed that specific downregulation of the bacterial-type PEPC gene, Atppc4, by artificial microRNA improved salt tolerance in Arabidopsis. The improved salt tolerance may be related with the improved PEPC activity.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (Y305251 and Y306145) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30430450).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agronomy, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, People’s Republic of China

    Fulin Wang & Chunhai Shi

  2. Institute of Virology and Biotechnology, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, People’s Republic of China

    Fulin Wang, Renhu Liu, Guanting Wu, Chunxiu Lang & Jinqing Chen

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  1. Fulin Wang
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  2. Renhu Liu
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  3. Guanting Wu
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  4. Chunxiu Lang
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Correspondence to Chunhai Shi.

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Wang, F., Liu, R., Wu, G. et al. Specific Downregulation of the Bacterial-Type PEPC Gene by Artificial MicroRNA Improves Salt Tolerance in Arabidopsis . Plant Mol Biol Rep 30, 1080–1087 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-012-0418-6

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