Engineering drought tolerant tomato plants over-expressing BcZAT12 gene encoding a C₂H₂ zinc finger transcription factor

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• 作者：Avinash Chandra Rai^a ; ^b ; ^{avinashchandraraigene29@gmail.com} ; Major Singh^b ; ^{singhvns@gmail.com} ; Kavita Shah^c ; ^{kshah.iesdbhu@sify.com}
• 关键词：Solanum lycopersicum ; Tomato ; Drought ; Transformation ; ZAT12
• 刊名：Phytochemistry
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：January, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：85
• 期：Complete
• 页码：44-50
• 全文大小：792 K

文摘

Efficient genetic transformation of cotyledonary explants of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum, cv. H-86, Kashi vishesh) was obtained. Disarmed Agrobacterium tumifaciens strain GV 3101 was used in conjugation with binary vector pBinAR containing a construct consisting of the coding sequence of the BcZAT12 gene under the regulatory control of the stress inducible Bclea1a promoter. ZAT12 encodes a C₂H₂ zinc finger protein which confers multiple abiotic stress tolerance to plants. Integration of ZAT12 gene into nuclear genome of individual kanamycin resistant transformed T_o tomato lines was confirmed by Southern blot hybridization with segregation analysis of T₁ plants showing Mendelian inheritance of the transgene. Expression of ZAT12 in drought-stressed transformed tomato lines was verified in T₂ generation plants using RT-PCR. Of the six transformed tomato lines (ZT1-ZT6) the transformants ZT1 and ZT5 showed maximum expression of BcZAT12 gene transcripts when exposed to 7 days drought stress. Analysis of relative water content (RWC), electrolyte leakage (EL), chlorophyll colour index (CCI), H₂O₂ level and catalase activity suggested that tomato BcZAT12 transformants ZT1 and ZT5 have significantly increased levels of drought tolerance. These results suggest that BcZAT12 transformed tomato cv. H-86 has real potential for molecular breeding programs aimed at augmenting yield of tomato in regions affected with drought stress.