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Functional Plant Biology Functional Plant Biology Society
Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Overexpression of sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase enhances photosynthesis and growth under salt stress in transgenic rice plants

Lingling Feng A B , Yujun Han A , Gai Liu A , Baoguang An A , Jing Yang A , Guohua Yang A , Yangsheng Li A C and Yingguo Zhu A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Key Laboratory of MOE for Plant Developmental Biology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, PR China.

B Key laboratory of Pesticide and Chemical Biology (CCNU) of Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, PR China.

C Corresponding author. Email: yangshengl@yahoo.com.cn

Functional Plant Biology 34(9) 822-834 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP07074
Submitted: 27 March 2007  Accepted: 19 June 2007   Published: 30 August 2007

Abstract

Activity of the Calvin cycle enzyme sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase (SBPase; EC3.1.3.37) was increased in the transgenic rice cultivar zhonghua11 (Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica) by overexpressing OsSbp cDNA from the rice cultivar 9311 (Oryza sativa ssp. indica). This genetic engineering enabled the transgenic plants to accumulate SBPase in chloroplasts and resulted in enhanced tolerance of transgenic rice plants to salt stress at the young seedlings stage. Moreover, CO2 assimilation in transgenic rice plants was significantly more tolerant to salt stress than in wild-type plants. The analysis of chlorophyll fluorescence and the activity of SBPase indicated that the enhancement of photosynthesis in salt stress was not related to the function of PSII but to the activity of SBPase. Western-blot analysis showed that salt stress led to the association of SBPase with the thylakoid membranes from the stroma fractions. However, this association was much more prominent in wild-type plants than in transgenic plants. Results suggested that under salt stress, SBPase maintained the activation of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase by providing more regeneration of the acceptor molecule ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate in the soluble stroma and by preventing the sequestration of Rubisco activase to the thylakoid membrane from the soluble stroma, and, thus, enhanced the tolerance of photosynthesis to salt stress. Results suggested that overexpression of SBPase was an effective method for enhanncing salt tolerance in rice.

Additional keywords: overexpression, photosynthesis, salt stress, sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase, transgenetic rice.


Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to Li-Zhong Xiong for a gift of the binary vector pU1301, to Christine A Raines for a gift of SBPase antibodies, to Henry Miziorko for a gift of PRK antibodies, and to Martin Parry for a gift of Rubisco antibodies. We would also like to thank Laurence Cantrill of www.outofsiteenglish.com.au for assistance with English expression. This work was supported by the State Key Basic Research and Development Plan of China (No. 2001CB108805), the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Innovative Research Team (No.30521004) and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team (PCSIRT). This work was also supported in part by the Hi-Tech Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2006AA10Z 1F 7) and the Key grant Project of Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No. 307018).


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