TY - JOUR
T1 - Improving drought-, salinity-, and heat-tolerance in transgenic plants by co-overexpressing Arabidopsis vacuolar pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 and Larrea Rubisco activase gene RCA
AU - Wijewardene, Inosha
AU - Mishra, Neelam
AU - Sun, Li
AU - Smith, Jennifer
AU - Zhu, Xunlu
AU - Payton, Paxton
AU - Shen, Guoxin
AU - Zhang, Hong
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s)
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - The severity and frequency of many abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity and heat, cause substantial crop losses worldwide, which poses a serious challenge in food security. To increase crop production, new approaches are needed. Previous research has shown that overexpression of the tonoplast H+ pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 leads to improved drought and salt tolerance in transgenic plants. Other research showed that overexpression of thermotolerant ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) activase gene could maintain photosynthesis at higher temperatures, which contributes to higher heat tolerance in transgenic plants. In nature, abiotic stresses rarely come alone, instead these stresses often occur in various combinations. Therefore, it is desirable to make crops more tolerant to multiple stresses, which will likely lead to higher crop yield under various stress conditions. It is shown here that co-overexpression of the Arabidopsis gene AVP1 and the Larrea Rubisco activase gene RCA significantly increases drought, salinity and heat tolerance, resulting in higher biomass and seed yield than wild-type plants. AVP1/RCA co-overexpressing plants are as more drought- and salt-tolerant as AVP1-overexpressing plants, and as more heat-tolerant as RCA-overexpressing plants. More importantly, they produce higher seed yields than AVP1-overexpressing, RCA-overexpressing, and wild-type plants under combined drought and heat conditions.
AB - The severity and frequency of many abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity and heat, cause substantial crop losses worldwide, which poses a serious challenge in food security. To increase crop production, new approaches are needed. Previous research has shown that overexpression of the tonoplast H+ pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 leads to improved drought and salt tolerance in transgenic plants. Other research showed that overexpression of thermotolerant ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) activase gene could maintain photosynthesis at higher temperatures, which contributes to higher heat tolerance in transgenic plants. In nature, abiotic stresses rarely come alone, instead these stresses often occur in various combinations. Therefore, it is desirable to make crops more tolerant to multiple stresses, which will likely lead to higher crop yield under various stress conditions. It is shown here that co-overexpression of the Arabidopsis gene AVP1 and the Larrea Rubisco activase gene RCA significantly increases drought, salinity and heat tolerance, resulting in higher biomass and seed yield than wild-type plants. AVP1/RCA co-overexpressing plants are as more drought- and salt-tolerant as AVP1-overexpressing plants, and as more heat-tolerant as RCA-overexpressing plants. More importantly, they produce higher seed yields than AVP1-overexpressing, RCA-overexpressing, and wild-type plants under combined drought and heat conditions.
KW - Abiotic stresses
KW - Drought
KW - Heat stress
KW - Proton pyrophosphatase
KW - Rubisco activase
KW - Salinity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084148353&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.plantsci.2020.110499
DO - 10.1016/j.plantsci.2020.110499
M3 - Article
C2 - 32540017
AN - SCOPUS:85084148353
SN - 0168-9452
VL - 296
JO - Plant Science
JF - Plant Science
M1 - 110499
ER -