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Characterization of a glutamine synthetase gene BnGS1-2 from ramie (Boehmeria nivea L. Gaud) and biochemical assays of BnGS1-2-over-expressing transgenic tobacco

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Abstract

Glutamine synthetase (GS) plays fundamental roles in nitrogen metabolism in higher plants. Ramie (Boehmeria nivea L. Gaud) has excellent forage and rapid growth characteristics, and isolated BnGS1-2 is closely related to that of legumes, potentially providing gene resources for nitrogen uptake and assimilation. Consequentially, transgenic studies involving the over-expression of BnGS1-2 in Nicotiana tabacum were performed to investigate the potential function and application of BnGS1-2 in higher plants. Comparative analysis of nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) was performed during wild type and independent transgenic lines with various in GS activity at the mRNA and protein levels. Our results indicate that the BnGS1-2-over-expressing transgenic lines significantly enhanced the fresh weight, dry weight and plant height. Simultaneously, the transgenic lines had higher soluble protein content and higher total nitrogen content than the control plants under normal planting condition. The range of enhancement positively associated with BnGS1-2 activities in different transgenic lines. The over-expression of BnGS1-2 in tobacco resulted in a significant decrease in leaf-free NH4 + content. Simultaneously, the transgenic lines increased the NO3 − uptake and NH4 + assimilation with a remarkable increase in the NR activity and no change in the free NO3 − content. These results indicate that BnGS1-2 would be an excellent gene resource for improvement of plants biomass and NUE.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the National Science and Technology Support Program of the China (2010BAD02B01). The authors thank Tobacco Research Institute of CAAS for the gift of the Nicotiana tabacum L. cv. Zhongyan 100 and Cotton Research Institute of CAAS for providing pBI121 vector. We also thank Dr. Lynne Hyman for critical reading of the manuscript and Minyan Wang for his helpful work.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Bast Fiber Crops, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha, 410205, Hunan, China

    Jian-Shu Zheng, Chun-Ming Yu, Ping Chen, Yan-Zhou Wang, Long-Tao Tan, Ji-Kang Chen & He-Ping Xiong

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  1. Jian-Shu Zheng
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  2. Chun-Ming Yu
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Correspondence to He-Ping Xiong.

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Communicated by G. Klobus.

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Zheng, JS., Yu, CM., Chen, P. et al. Characterization of a glutamine synthetase gene BnGS1-2 from ramie (Boehmeria nivea L. Gaud) and biochemical assays of BnGS1-2-over-expressing transgenic tobacco. Acta Physiol Plant 37, 1742 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-014-1742-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-014-1742-2

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