Crossbreeding of transgenic flax plants overproducing flavonoids and glucosyltransferase results in progeny with improved antifungal and antioxidative properties

Abstract

Flavonoids are a large group of secondary plant metabolites with many important functions; they play a role in fruit, flower and seed pigmentation and are involved in multiple protective mechanisms. They are very active natural antioxidants, acting as antimicrobial compounds in defense against pathogens, and they protect the plant against various stress factors, including excessive solar radiation and temperature. They are also an animal deterrent. Flax is already a very useful crop plant with nutritional and biomedical applications. With increased phenylpropanoid content, flax plants could be used in the production of improved dietary supplements and antimicrobial agents. The main aim of this study was to engineer a flax variety with increased flavonoid content by crossing two transgenic flax varieties that have heightened flavonoid levels. A mother plant that over expresses genes encoding the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway enzymes chalcone synthase, chalcone isomerase and dihydroflavonol reductase was crossed with plants overexpressing the glucosyltransferase (GT) gene. It was expected that the progeny would display better properties thanks to the simultaneous increases in flavonoid synthesis and stability. In comparison to the control and parental plants, plants of the selected flax lines were found to have increased contents of flavonoids and other phenylpropanoids, including phenolic acids, in their stems and seeds. A significant increase in the secoisolariciresinol diglucoside content was found in the seeds. The antioxidative properties of extracts from W92 × GT crossbreed plants were higher than the control (non-transgenic) and parental plants. These results correlated with the increase in the susceptibility of the crossbreeds to Fusarium infection. The increased flavonoid content did not cause any negative phenotypic changes or reduce the yield of seeds.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11032-014-0149-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Methyl Salicylate Level Increase in Flax after Fusarium oxysporum Infection Is Associated with Phenylpropanoid Pathway Activation

“…Both types of glycosides, which can be derived from apigenin and luteolin, were measured in higher amounts in flax after fungal infection, which corresponds to the increased glucosyltransferase gene transcript level. It is well established that flavonoids have high anti-pathogenic properties (Mierziak et al, 2014b). Overexpression of glucosyltransferase in flax and Arabidopsis was shown to protect plants against infection (Lorenc-Kukula et al, 2009; Shin et al, 2012).…”

Identification of genic SSRs in jute (Corchorus capsularis, Malvaceae) and development of markers for phenylpropanoid biosynthesis genes and regulatory genes

“…The regulatory genes controlling the expression of phenylpropanoid pathway genes are equally important as they are known to influence the whole pathway (Cavallini et al., ). Modification of structural as well as regulatory genes involved in phenylpropanoid metabolism has led to lignin reduction in cell walls for better textile use and increase in degradability of biofuel crops (Dixon et al., ; Fornalé et al., ), engineering of plants for mass production of chemicals (Guterman et al., ), modification of cell wall properties of forage crops for better digestibility (Giordano et al., ) and increased resistance to pests and diseases (Mierziak et al., ; Tianpei et al., ). Therefore, development of genic markers associated with phenylpropanoid pathway genes would allow us to mine genetic variation for these target traits in elite breeding lines and eventually manipulate these using molecular breeding approaches (Valdés‐López & Hernández, ).…”

Close and distant: Contrasting the metabolism of two closely related subspecies of Scots pine under the effects of folivory and summer drought

“…Hernández, Alegre, Van Breusegem, and Munné‐Bosch (2009), however, reviewed the role of flavonoids in plants and concluded that the antioxidant function of flavonoids in plants is still a matter of debate due the lack of a strong spatiotemporal correlation between oxidative stress and flavonoid oxidation, even though different species of flavonoids can accumulate in in vitro plants under oxidative stress in response to diverse biotic and abiotic stressors. On the other hand, transgenic plants that over‐express the genes that code for flavonoids have recently been used to produce progeny with improved antifungal and antioxidative properties (Mierziak et al., 2014; Ravensdale et al., 2014). Although most studies agree that flavonoids have strong antioxidant properties in plants, further research is necessary to deeply decipher the spatiotemporal mechanism of flavonoids with plant oxidation stress.…”