Halophytes are rich sources of salt stress tolerance genes which have often been utilized for introduction of salt-tolerance character in salt-sensitive plants. In the present study, we overexpressed
PcINO1
and
PcIMT1
gene(s), earlier characterized in this laboratory from wild halophytic rice
Porteresia coarctata
, into IR64
indica
rice either singly or in combination and assessed their role in conferring salt-tolerance. Homozygous T
3
/T
4
transgenic plants revealed that
PcINO1
transformed transgenic rice lines exhibit significantly higher tolerance upto 200 mM or higher salt concentration with negligible compromise in their growth or other physiological parameters compared to the untransformed system grown without stress. The PcIMT1-lines or the double transgenic lines (DC1) having
PcINO1
and
PcIMT1
introgressed together, were less efficient in such respect. Comparison of inositol and/or pinitol pool in three types of transgenic plants suggests that plants whose inositol production remains uninterrupted under stress by the functional PcINO1 protein, showed normal growth as in the wild-type plants without stress. It is conceivable that inositol itself acts as a stress-ameliorator and/or as a switch for a number of other pathways important for imparting salt-tolerance. Such selective manipulation of the inositol metabolic pathway may be one of the ways to combat salt stress in plants.
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