Enhanced drought and salinity tolerance in transgenic potato plants with a BADH gene from spinach
Ning Zhang • Huai-Jun Si • Gang Wen •Hong-Hui Du • Bai-Lin Liu • Di Wang

Received: 27 April 2010 / Accepted: 4 December 2010 / Published online: 23 December 2010
Korean Society for Plant Biotechnology and Springer 2010

Abstract Drought and salinity are the most important abiotic stresses that affect the normal growth and development of plants. Glycine betaine is one of the most important osmolytes present in higher plants that enable them to cope with environmental stresses through osmotic adjustment. In this study, a betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase (BADH) gene from spinach under the control of the stress-induced promoter rd29A from Arabidopsis thaliana was introduced into potato cultivar Gannongshu 2 by the Agrobacterium tumefaciens system. Putative transgenic plants were confirmed by Southern blot analysis. Northern hybridization analysis demonstrated that expression of BADH gene was induced by drought and NaCl stress in the transgenic potato plants. The BADH activity in the transgenic potato plants was between 10.8 and 11.7 U. There was a negative relationship (y = -2.2083x ? 43.329, r = 0.9495) between BADH activity and the relative electrical conductivity of the transgenic potato plant leaves. Plant height increased by 0.4–0.9 cm and fresh weight per plant increased by 17–29% for the transgenic potato plants under NaCl and polyethylene glycol stresses compared with the control potato plants. These results indicated that the ability of transgenic plants to tolerate drought and salt was increased when their BADH activity was increased.

N. Zhang (&) H.-J. Si G. Wen H.-H. Du B.-L. Liu D. Wang
Gansu Provincial Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science,Gansu Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic and Germplasm Enhancement, College of Life Science and Technology, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070,People’s Republic of China
e-mail: ningzh@gsau.edu.cn
D. Wang e-mail: wangd@gsau.edu.cn