Authors: Dong Suomeng Zhang Zhengguang Zheng Xiaobo Wang Yuanchao
Publish Date: 2008/05/29
Volume: 27, Issue: 9, Pages: 1559-1569
Abstract
Emerging evidence suggests that plants and animals may share certain biochemical commonalities in apoptosis or programmed cell death PCD pathways though plants lack key animal apoptosis related genes In plants PCD has many important functions including a role in immunity and resistance to pathogen infection In this study a rice phenylalanine ammonialyase promoter is used to regulate the expression of the mouse proapoptotic bax gene in transgenic tobacco plants Ectopic expression of the bax negatively affects the growth of transgenic plants Nonetheless results show that the bax transgene is induced upon infection by plant pathogens and accumulation of Bax is observed by Western blot analysis By estimating and measuring the extent of cell death release of active oxygen species and accumulation defenseassociated gene transcripts it is shown that bax transgenic plants mount a more robust cell death response compared to control plants The bax transgenic tobacco plants are also more resistant to infection by Phytophthora parasitica and Ralstonia solanacearum but have no obvious resistance to tobacco mosaic virus These results substantiate past studies and illustrate the powerful effects mammalian bax genes may have on plant development and disease resistanceThis research was supported by the NSFC project 30471124 and New Century Excellent Scholar Project of Ministry of Education of China NCET040503 We thank Prof Guo Zejian China Agricultural Univeristy China for donating PAL promoter as a gift and Prof Guo Jianhua and Shao Ming Nanjing Agricultural University China for providing bacteria strains Dr Mark Gijzen Dr Dinah Qutob and Dr Katherine Dobinson Agriculture and AgriFood Canada Canada are especially acknowledged for critical reading of the manuscript We appreciate Dr Paul Tyler University of Melbourne Australia for helpful suggestions
Keywords: