Overexpression of Jatropha Aquaporin Genes, JcPIP1 and JcPIP2, Does Not Alter Response to Salt and Drought Stresses in Transgenic Arabidopsis

摘要

The heterologous expression of PIP1 and PIP2 in plants is a useful strategy for engineering plants, altered to enhance salt and drought tolerance. In order to further understand the functions of JcPIPl and JcPIP2 under salt and drought stresses, we generated transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing JcPIPl or JcPIP2. Transgenic plants did not exhibit improved tolerance against salt and drought stresses compared to WT (Col-0) in seed germination and root elongation. However, results have shown thatthe total plant growth exhibited improved total plant and rosette leaf growth. The relative water contents (RWC) results showed that, overall, lines have a higher RWC under salt stress than drought stress. However, the transcript levels of several saltstress-responsive genes led us to propose that the unchanged growth of transgenic Arabidopsis plants under salt and drought stresses is due, at least in part, to modulation of the expression of the salt stress-responsive genes by JcPIPl or JcPIPl. Takentogether, these results suggest that overexpression of JcPIPl and JcPIPl in Arabidopsis was not altered response to salt and drought stresses.