JXB Advance Access originally published online on May 31, 2005
Journal of Experimental Botany 2005 56(417):1975-1981; doi:10.1093/jxb/eri195
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RESEARCH PAPER |
Effects of free proline accumulation in petunias under drought stress
1Central Research Laboratory, c/o Advanced Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd., 2520 Akanuma, Hatoyama-cho, Hiki-gun, Saitama 350-0395, Japan
2Research Resources Center, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
3Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology, RIKEN Tsukuba Institute, 3-1-1 Koyadai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0074, Japan
4Biological Resources Division, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2-1 Ohwashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8686, Japan
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Fax: +81 49 296 6006. E-mail: yoshiba{at}harl.hitachi.co.jp
Petunias (Petunia hybrida cv. Mitchell) accumulate free proline (Pro) under drought-stress conditions. It is therefore believed that Pro acts as an osmoprotectant in plants subjected to drought conditions. Petunia plants were transformed by
1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase genes (AtP5CS from Arabidopsis thaliana L. or OsP5CS from Oryza sativa L.). The transgenic plants accumulated Pro and their drought tolerance was tested. The Pro content amounted to 0.571.01% of the total amino acids in the transgenic plants, or 1.52.6 times that in wild-type plants grown under normal conditions. The transgenic plant lines tolerated 14 d of drought stress, which confirms that both P5CS transgenes had full functionality. Exogenous L-Pro treatment caused the plants to accumulate Pro; plants treated with 5 mM L-Pro accumulated up to 18 times more free Pro than untreated plants. Exogenous L-Pro restricted the growth of wild-type petunias more than that of Arabidopsis plants. The capacity for free Pro accumulation might depend on the plant species. The growth of petunia plants was influenced not only by the Pro concentration in the plants, but by the ratio of the Pro content to the total amino acids, because the growth of the transgenic petunia plants appeared normal.
Key words: Drought tolerance, genetic engineering, osmoprotectant, stress response, transgenic petunia
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