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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Soil and Water Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #330841
Title: Co-overexpressing a plasma membrane and a vacuolar membrane sodium/proton antiporter significantly improves salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis plants.

Author
item SUN, LI - Texas Tech University
item JARRETT, PHILIP - Texas Tech University
item YANG, XIAOJIE - Henan Agricultural University
item MISHRA, NEELAM - Texas Tech University
item CHEN, LIN - Zhejiang Academy Of Agricultural Sciences
item KADIOGLU, ASIM - Karadeniz Technical University
item SHEN, GUOXIN - Zhejiang Academy Of Agricultural Sciences
item ZHANG, HONG - Texas Tech University
item PEHLIVAN, NECLA - Recep Tayyip Erdogan University

Submitted to: Plant and Cell Physiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/11/2016
Publication Date: 3/16/2016
Citation: Sun, L., Jarrett, P., Yang, X., Mishra, N., Chen, L., Kadioglu, A., Shen, G., Zhang, H., Pehlivan, N. 2016. Co-overexpressing a plasma membrane and a vacuolar membrane sodium/proton antiporter significantly improves salt tolerance in transgenic arabidopsis plants. Plant and Cell Physiology. 57(5):1069-1084.

Interpretive Summary: As water in the Ogallala Aquifer decreases, there are concerns that water quality will decline and crop growth will be inhibited by saline soil conditions. Scientists from Texas Tech University, Henan Agricultural University, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Karadeniz Technical University in ARS led Ogallala Aquifer Program created transgenetic plants to overexpress sodium transport proteins. These transgenetic plants tolerated up to 250 mm sodium chloride. These results are of interest to plant physiologists and crop breeders because they provide insight into mechanisms of saline tolerance.

Technical Abstract: The Arabidopsis gene AtNHX1 encodes a vacuolar membrane bound sodium/proton (Sodium/Hydrogen) antiporter that transports sodium into the vacuole and exports hydrogen into the cytoplasm. The Arabidopsis gene SOS1 encodes a plasma membrane bound sodium/hydrogen antiporter that exports sodium to the extracellular space and imports hydrogen into the plant cell. Plants rely on these enzymes either to keep sodium out of the cell or to sequester sodium into vacuoles to avoid the toxic level of sodium in the cytoplasm. Overexpression of AtNHX1 or SOS1 could improve salt tolerance in transgenic plants, but the improved salt tolerance is limited. Sodium chloride at concentration greater than 200 mM would kill AtNHX1 overexpressing or SOS1 overexpressing plants. Here it is shown that cooverexpressing AtNHX1 and SOS1 could further improve salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis plants, making transgenic Arabidopsis able to tolerate up to 250 mM sodium chloride treatment. Furthermore, cooverexpression of AtNHX1 and SOS1 could significantly reduce yield loss caused by the combined stresses of heat and salt, confirming the hypothesis that stacked overexpression of two genes could substantially improve tolerance against multiple stresses. This research serves as a proof of concept for improving salt tolerance in other plants including crops.