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

Understanding the role of the fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase gene for enhancing the photosynthetic rate in Arabidopsis thaliana

Fatima Gulzar A , Raza Ahmad B , Suk-Yoon Kwan C , Zulqurnain Khan A , Sulaiman Ali Alharbi D , Mohmmad Maroof Shah B , Shoaib ur Rehman A , Maria Siddique E , Mohammad Javed Ansari F G , Irum Shahzadi B , Muhammad Abu Bakar Saddique https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8107-0833 A , Muhmmad Zahid Ishaq H and Ummara Waheed https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5518-6736 A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Institute of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Muhammad Nawaz Shareef University of Agriculture, Multan, Pakistan.

B Department of Biotechnology, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Islamabad, Pakistan.

C Plant System Engineering, Korea Research Institute of Bio Sciences and Biotechnology, Daejon 34141, Republic of Korea.

D Department of Botany & Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, P.O Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.

E Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Islamabad, Pakistan.

F Department of Plant Protection, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 1451, Saudi Arabia.

G Department of Botany, Hindu College Moradabad, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University, Bareilly 244001, India.

H Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Nishtar Medical University and Hospital, Multan, Pakistan.

* Correspondence to: ummara.waheed@mnsuam.edu.pk

Handling Editor: Sajid Fiaz

Functional Plant Biology 51, FP24034 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP24034
Submitted: 7 February 2024  Accepted: 24 March 2024  Published: 19 April 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing

Abstract

Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana (ecotype Columbia) was successfully transformed with the gene fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (FBPase) and named as AtFBPase plants. Transgenic plants exhibited stable transformation, integration and significantly higher expressions for the transformed gene. Morphological evaluation of transgenic plants showed increased plant height (35 cm), number of leaves (25), chlorophyll contents (28%), water use efficiency (increased from 1.5 to 2.6 μmol CO2 μmol−1 H2O) and stomatal conductance (20%), which all resulted in an enhanced photosynthetic rate (2.7 μmol m−2 s−1) compared to wild type plants. This study suggests the vital role of FBPase gene in the modification of regulatory pathways to enhance the photosynthetic rate, which can also be utilised for economic crops in future.

Keywords: Arabidopsis thaliana, C3, C4, CO2, FBPase, genetic transformation, photorespiration, photosynthesis.

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