for stress responses (reviewed by Rajam et al. 1998;Kumar et al. 2006). It has been reported that the overexpression of PA biosynthetic genes like adc (Roy and Wu 2001;Capell et al. 1998;2004) Abstract Polyamines (putrescine, spermidine and spermine) have been shown to be important in stress tolerance. Thus, the present study was undertaken with the aim to enhance stress tolerance in eggplant by introduction of a key polyamine biosynthetic gene arginine decarboxylase, adc under the control of a constitutive promoter of cauliflower mosaic virus, CaMV35S through Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Several putative transgenic plants were generated and the transgene integration and expression was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot analyses, and RT-PCR analysis, respectively. These transgenic plants have shown an enhanced level of polyamines due to the increase in ADC enzyme activity. The diamine oxidase (an enzyme involved in putrescine and spermidine degradation) activity was also increased in these transgenic plants. Polyamine-accumulating transgenic plants exhibited an increased tolerance levels to multiple abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought, low and high temperature, and heavy-metal and resistance against fungal wilt disease caused by Fusarium oxysporium.Key words: Agrobacterium, arginine decarboxylase, eggplant, plant transformation, polyamines, stress tolerance.Plant Biotechnology 24, 273-282 (2007)
Original PaperAbbreviations: ADC, arginine decarboxylase; DAO, diamine oxidase; MS, Murashige and Skoog; ODC, ornithine decarboxylase; PAs, polyamines; Put, putrescine; Spd, spermidine; Spm, spermine. This article can be found at http://www,jspcmb.jp/ Kasukabe et al. 2004; in plants like rice, tobacco, Arabidopsis and sweet potato, has resulted in increased tolerance to abiotic stresses. There is only one report on fungal resistance in transgenic tobacco plants overexpressing samdc gene (Waie and Rajam 2003).Therefore, the present work was aimed to generate transgenic eggplants with oat arginine decarboxylase (ADC, EC 4.1.1.19) gene, a key gene involved in PA biosynthesis, and evaluate such transgenic plants for PA levels and tolerance against both abiotic and biotic stresses under in vitro and in vivo growth conditions. Indeed, these transgenic eggplants have shown elevated PA content that could be correlated with increased tolerance to multiple abiotic stresses and fungal resistance.
Materials and methods
Plant material and plasmidThe seeds of eggplant (Solanum melongena L., cv. Pusa Purple Long) were obtained from the National Seeds Corporation, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. The Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 containing binary plasmid pMVR3ADC with oat adc gene under the control of cauliflower mosaic virus CaMV35S promoter and nopaline synthase terminator, and hygromycin phosphotransferase (hpt) as plant selection marker was used for eggplant transformation ( Figure 1A).
Eggplant transformation and regenerationLeaf and cotyledon explants, collected from about thirty ...