Engineering salt-tolerant Brassica plants: characterization of yield and seed oil quality in transgenic plants with increased vacuolar sodium accumulation - PubMed (original) (raw)

Engineering salt-tolerant Brassica plants: characterization of yield and seed oil quality in transgenic plants with increased vacuolar sodium accumulation

H X Zhang et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001.

Abstract

Transgenic Brassica napus plants overexpressing AtNHX1, a vacuolar Na(+)/H(+) antiport from Arabidopsis thaliana, were able to grow, flower, and produce seeds in the presence of 200 mM sodium chloride. Although the transgenic plants grown in high salinity accumulated sodium up to 6% of their dry weight, growth of the these plants was only marginally affected by the high salt concentration. Moreover, seed yields and the seed oil quality were not affected by the high salinity of the soil. Our results demonstrate the potential use of these transgenic plants for agricultural use in saline soils. Our findings, showing that the modification of a single trait significantly improved the salinity tolerance of this crop plant, suggest that with a combination of breeding and transgenic plants it could be possible to produce salt-tolerant crops with far fewer target traits than had been anticipated.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Salt tolerance of wild-type (WT) plants and transgenic Brassica plants overexpressing AtNHX1 grown in the presence of 200 mM NaCl. Wild-type and homozygous plants showing high (X1OE1), medium (X1OE2), and low (X1OE3) levels of expression were grown in the presence of 200 mM NaCl. Plants are shown after 10 weeks of growth. (Inset) Western blots of leaf tonoplast-enriched membrane fractions isolated from wild-type and transgenic plants with low, medium, and high levels of expression of AtNHX1. Blots were probed with antibodies raised against the C terminus of AtNHX1. Equal amounts of protein (20 μg) were loaded in each lane. Relative molecular masses are indicated on the left.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Na+ and K+ contents of leaves and roots from wild-type plants grown at 10 mM NaCl (filled bars) and transgenic plants (X1OE1) grown at 10 mM NaCl (empty bars) and 200 mM NaCl (hatched line bars). (A) Na+ content. (B) K+ content. Leaves and roots were collected from 15 plants from each treatment, the material was pooled in three groups, and ion contents were measured as described in Materials and Methods. Values are the mean ± SD (n = 3).

Figure 3

Figure 3

Proline, soluble sugars, protein, and total nitrogen contents of leaves and roots from wild-type plants grown at 10 mM NaCl (filled bars) and transgenic plants (X1OE1) grown at 10 mM NaCl (empty bars) and 200 mM NaCl (hatched line bars). (A) Proline content. (B) Soluble sugar content. (C) Total protein content. (D) Total nitrogen content. Leaves and roots were collected from 15 plants from each treatment, the material was pooled in three groups, and contents were measured as described in Materials and Methods. Values are the mean ± SD (n = 3).

Figure 4

Figure 4

Fatty acid composition of the minor chloroplastic lipids from wild-type plants grown at 10 mM NaCl (filled bars) and transgenic plants grown (X1OE1) at 10 mM NaCl (empty bars) and 200 mM NaCl (hatched line bars). (A) SQDG. (B) PG. Leaves were collected as leaf discs from 15 plants from each treatment, the material was pooled in three groups of 2 g each, and contents were purified and measured as described in Materials and Methods. Values are the mean ± SD (n = 5).

Figure 5

Figure 5

Fatty acid composition of seeds from wild-type plants grown in 10 mM NaCl (filled bars) and transgenic plants (X1OE1) grown in the presence of 200 mM NaCl (hatched line bars). Seeds were collected from individual plants, and batches of three seeds per plant were used for each measurement. Values are the mean ± SD (n = 5).

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