Overexpression of a peroxidase gene (AtPrx64) of Arabidopsis thaliana in tobacco improves plant’s tolerance to aluminum stress

Abstract

AtPrx64 is one of the peroxidases gene up-regulated in Al stress and has some functions in the formation of plant second cell wall. Its overexpression may improve plant tolerance to Al by some ways. Studies on its function under Al stress may help us to understand the mechanism of plant tolerance to Al stress. In Arabidopsis thaliana, the expressions of some genes (AtPrxs) encoding class III plant peroxidases have been found to be either up-regulated or down-regulated under aluminum (Al) stress. Among 73 genes that encode AtPrxs in Arabidopsis, AtPrx64 is always up-regulated by Al stress, suggesting this gene plays protective roles in response to such stress. In this study, transgenic tobacco plants were generated to examine the effects of overexpressing of AtPrx64 gene on the tolerance to Al stress. The results showed that overexpression of AtPrx64 gene increased the root growth and reduced the accumulation of Al and ROS in the roots. Compared with wild type controls, transgenic tobaccos had much less soluble proteins and malondialdehyde in roots and much more root citrate exudation. The activity of plasma membrane (PM) H-ATPase, the phosphorylation of PM H-ATPase and its interaction with 14-3-3 proteins increased in transgenic tobaccos; moreover, the content of lignin in root tips also increased. Taken together, these results showed that overexpression of AtPrx64 gene might enhance the tolerance of tobacco to Al stress.

Overexpression of ZePrx in Nicotiana tabacum Affects Lignin Biosynthesis Without Altering Redox Homeostasis

“…The use of expression studies, biochemical characterization and mutants or transgenic plants has been very useful to assign a precise function to a specific Prx ( Cosio and Dunand, 2009 ). Plant transformation has provided numerous evidences of the in planta function of various isoenzymes ( El Mansouri et al, 1999 ; Kawaoka et al, 2003 ; Kim et al, 2008 ; Herrero et al, 2013a ; Fernández-Pérez et al, 2014 , 2015 ; Cosio et al, 2017 ; Wu et al, 2017 ).…”

Membrane-Bound Class III Peroxidases: Unexpected Enzymes with Exciting Functions

“…It was shown that AtPrx66 and AtPrx47 were associated with lignification of vessels, whereas AtPrx64 was associated with lignification of sclerenchyma [ 30 , 31 ]. A recent study demonstrated that aluminum tolerance of tobacco ( Nicotiana tabacum L.) plants was improved by overexpression of a tprx64 [ 32 ].…”

A member of wheat class III peroxidase gene family, TaPRX-2A, enhanced the tolerance of salt stress

“…[63]. In tobacco, it has been showed that overexpression of a class III PRX gene (AtPrx64) of A. thaliana improved the plant's aluminum tolerance by increasing the root growth and scavenging accumulation of aluminum and ROS [64]. In A. thaliana, overexpression of AtPRX3 was shown to improve the dehydration and salt tolerance.…”