Enhanced abiotic stress tolerance of vicia faba l. Plants heterologously expressing the pr10a gene from potato

authored by

Abeer F. Desouky, Ahmed H. Hanafy, Hartmut Stützel, Hans Jörg Jacobsen, Yi Chen Pao, Moemen S. Hanafy

Abstract

Pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins are known to play relevant roles in plant defense against biotic and abiotic stresses. In the present study, we characterize the response of transgenic faba bean (Vicia faba L.) plants encoding a PR10a gene from potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) to salinity and drought. The transgene was under the mannopine synthetase (pMAS) promoter. PR10a-overexpressing faba bean plants showed better growth than the wild-type plants after 14 days of drought stress and 30 days of salt stress under hydroponic growth conditions. After re-moving the stress, the PR10a-plants returned to a normal state, while the wild-type plants could not be restored. Most importantly, there was no phenotypic difference between transgenic and non-transgenic faba bean plants under well-watered conditions. Evaluation of physiological parameters during salt stress showed lower Na⁺-content in the leaves of the transgenic plants, which would reduce the toxic effect. In addition, PR10a-plants were able to maintain vegetative growth and experienced fewer photosystem changes under both stresses and a lower level of osmotic stress injury under salt stress compared to wild-type plants. Taken together, our findings suggest that the PR10a gene from potato plays an important role in abiotic stress tolerance, probably by activation of stress-related physiological processes.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Horticultural Production Systems
Section Plant Biotechnology

External Organisation(s)

National Research Center, Cairo
Cairo University

Type

Article

Journal

Plants

Volume

10

Pages

1-20

No. of pages

20

ISSN

2223-7747

Publication date

01.2021

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Ecology, Plant Science

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10010173 (Access: Open)