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Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access published online on January 28, 2009
Plant and Cell Physiology, doi:10.1093/pcp/pcp014
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Constitutive expression of a trypsin protease inhibitor confers multiple stress tolerance in transgenic tobacco

Tantravahi Srinivasan, Koppolu Raja Rajesh Kumar and Pulugurtha Bharadwaja Kirti

Department of Plant Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500046, India.

Corresponding Author: Prof. Pulugurtha Bharadwaja Kirti. Department of Plant Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500046, India. Phone: +91- 40-23134545, Fax: +91- 40-23010120, email: pbksl{at}uohyd.ernet.in


  Abstract

Protease inhibitors have been reported to confer insect resistance in transgenic plants except a rice protease inhibitor that conferred drought tolerance in transgenic rice plants. We have cloned a protease inhibitor of tobacco that is expressed under treatment with abscisic acid, hydrogen peroxide, methyl jasmonate and wounding. The cDNA codes for a six domain serine protease inhibitor with a deduced sequence of 396 amino acids. We have generated transgenic tobacco plants expressing the protease inhibitor constitutively under the 35S promoter. When analyzed in T2 generation, these transgenic plants exhibited tolerance to , sodium chloride, variable pH, sorbitol along with the expected resistance to the insect pests Spodoptera litura and Helicoverpa armigera. The transgenic plants showed enhanced seed germination, root length and root-shoot ratio, significantly enhanced total chlorophyll content and reduced thiobarbituric acid reactive substances under stress. Under sodium chloride treatment, the transgenic plants have enhanced protease inhibitor activity. The transgenic plants exhibited higher potassium content and optimum K+ /Na+ ratio. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the transgenic plants with constitutive protease inhibitor expression showing tolerance to a wide range of pH in the culture medium along with other stresses.

Keywords: Protease inhibitor - transgenic tobacco - osmotic stress tolerance - wide pH range - insect resistance

(Received December 6, 2008; Accepted January 25, 2009)
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