Overexpression of GlyI and GlyII genes in transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.) plants confers salt tolerance by decreasing oxidative stress

Abstract

The glyoxalase system plays an important role in various physiological processes in plants, including salt stress tolerance. We report the effects of overexpressing glyoxalase I and glyoxalase II genes in transgenic tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.) cv. Ailsa Craig. Stable expression of both transgenes was detected in the transformed tomato plants under salt stress. The transgenic lines overexpressing GlyI and GlyII under a high NaCl concentration (800 mM) showed reduced lipid peroxidation and the production of H2O2 in leaf tissues. A greater decrease in the chlorophyll a+b content in wild-type (WT) compared with transgenic lines was also observed. These results suggest that the over expression of two genes, GlyI and GlyII, may enhance salt stress tolerance by decreasing oxidative stress in transformed tomato plants. This work will help our understanding of the putative role of the glyoxalase system in the tolerance to abiotic stress in tomato plants.

Glyoxalase Goes Green: The Expanding Roles of Glyoxalase in Plants

“…Double transgenic lines of tobacco, overexpressing both GLYI and GLYII , were found to be more tolerant to salinity than plants overexpressing either GLYI or GLYII [51]. The same approach was also used in tomato to enhance resistance to salinity stress [55]. The glyoxalase pathway has also been engineered in plants for heavy metal tolerance.…”

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in the service of biotechnology

“…Hence, numerous researchers focused on one or a few genetic changes to modify key metabolites (e.g. glycine betaine and proline) (Goel et al 2011;Á lvarez-Viveros et al 2013) or proteins Late Embryogenesis Abundance (LEA) (Muñoz-Mayor et al 2012) for drought resistance. Another strategy to increase the level of drought and salinity tolerance in plants consists of a transfer of genes encoding different types of proteins involved in molecular responses to abiotic stress such as osmoprotectants, chaperones, detoxifying enzymes, transcription factors, signal transduction proteins (kinases and phosphatases) and heat-shock proteins (HSPs) Mishra et al 2012;Li et al 2013).…”

Piercing and incubation method of in planta transformation producing stable transgenic plants by overexpressing DREB1A gene in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum Mill.)

“…Currently, a novel method of gene transfer via Agrobacterium has been introduced which avoids tissue culture steps and produces transgenic plants directly from infected tissues, in a shorter period of time than that of tissue culture based transformation (Supartana et al 2005). Therefore, it is a dire need to optimize various factors that greatly affect the in planta transformation for the incorporation of cold tolerant gene in tomato, because the genes that are overexpressed during cold stress are regarded to In earlier studies, hygromycin has been extensively used as a selection marker in tomato transgenic plant production (Li et al 2013;Viveros et al 2013;Xin et al 2014). Hygromycin is a powerful antibiotic that limits polypeptide elongation during protein synthesis in non-transformed plants, while transformed plants with metabolites can turn over the effect of selection agent (Olhoft et al 2003).…”