tailieunhanh - Improved salt tolerance of jute plants expressing the katE gene from Escherichia coli

There is an urgent need for developing crops with greater tolerance to environmental stresses. This is even more important for fiber crops, which are being pushed to the marginal low-productive lands in order to make more room for food crops. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2013) 37: 206-211 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article Improved salt tolerance of jute plants expressing the katE gene from Escherichia coli 1, 2, 2 3 Md. Shahidul ISLAM *, Muhammad Shafiul AZAM *, Sazia SHARMIN , Abu Ashfaqur SAJIB , 2 2 2 2, Md. Maksudul ALAM , Md. Shamim REZA , Rajib AHMED , Haseena KHAN ** 1 Bangladesh Jute Research Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 Molecular Biology Lab, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh 3 Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh Received: Accepted: Published Online: Printed: Abstract: There is an urgent need for developing crops with greater tolerance to environmental stresses. This is even more important for fiber crops, which are being pushed to the marginal low-productive lands in order to make more room for food crops. Jute is the source of a highly versatile and environmentally friendly natural fiber, and is second only to cotton in terms of production and variety of uses. In this study, we used a tissue culture independent method for introducing a CMV 35S promoter driven katE gene from Escherichia coli K12 into a popular jute cultivar (Corchorus olitorius var O-72) in Bangladesh. Molecular analysis of the transgenic plants using PCR, reverse transcription PCR, and Southern blot confirmed the insertion of the katE gene into the jute genome and its successful expression. Salt stress regimens (150 mM NaCl) showed that transgenic plants were more tolerant as compared to wild plants. Key words: Jute, salt tolerance, katE, fiber crop, transgenic 1. Introduction High salinity causes ion imbalance and hyperosmotic stresses, which alter plant metabolism by affecting the content and activities of many enzymes (1). As a secondary effect of persistent salinity, oxidative .