• Rapid Communication in Photoscience
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.28-31
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• 2014

Loss of chlorophyll is the visible symptom of leaf senescence and staygreen refers to the delayed leaf senescence in plants. The staygreen gene (SGR) in rice (Oryza sativa L.) has been identified as its mutation maintains greenness during leaf senescence, and encodes a chloroplast protein required for the initiation of chlorophyll breakdown in plants. In this study, we isolated a rice SGR-homologous gene in creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.), and transgenic creeping bentgrass plants were obtained by introducing pCAMBIA3301 vector harboring antisense SGR gene under control of the senescence-specific SAG12 promoter. Transgenic plants were selected by herbicide resistance assays and genomic integration of the transgenes was confirmed by PCR analysis. Subsequent analyses demonstrated the staygreen phenotype of the transgenic creeping bentgrass plants with decreased chlorophyll loss during leaf senescence. These results suggest that the antisense SGR expression in creeping bentgrass delays leaf senescence, which provides a way to develop genetically engineered turfgrass varieties with the commercially useful staygreen trait.

• Plant Resources
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.202-208
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• 2005

Osmotic stress is one of major limiting factors in crop production. In particular, seasonal drought often causes the secondary disease in the field, resulting in severe reduction in both quality and productivity. Recent efforts have revealed that many genes encoding protein kinases play important roles in osmotic stress signal transduction pathways. Previously, the AtSIK (Arabidopsis thaliana Stress Inducible Kinase) mutants have shown to enhance tolerance to abiotic stresses, accompanying with higher expression of abiotic stress-related genes than did the wild-type plants. In this study, we have transformed potato (cv. Taedong Valley) with the AtSIK expression cassette. Both PCR and RT-PCR using AtSIK-specific primers showed stable integration and expression of the AtSIK gene in individual transgenic lines, respectively. Foliar application of herbicide ($Basta^{(R)}$) at commercial application rate (0.3% (v/v)) revealed another evidence of stable gene introduction of T-DNA which includes the bar gene for herbicide resistance. Overexpression of the AtSIK gene under dual CaMV35S promoter increased sensitivity to salt stress (300 mM NaCl), which was demonstrated by the reduction rate of chlorophyll contents in leaves of transgenic potato lines. These results suggest that possible increase of osmotic tolerance in potato plants may be achieved by antisense expression of AtSIK gene.

• 한국생물공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.189-192
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• 2001

We have investigated the effects of abiotic and biotic stresses on leaf senescence using transgenic tobacco plants, in which cellular contents of polyamines were increased by introducing the genes of polyamine and ethylene biosynthesis in sense or antisense orientation. These transgenic plants showed accumulations of polyamines at higher levels than were found in wild-type. Stress-induced senescence was attenuated in transgenic plants cpmpared with wild-type plants, in terms of total chlorphyll loss and phenotypic changes after oxidative stress of hydrogen peroxide($H_2O_2$), high salinity, acid stress (pH3.0), ABA and fungal pathogen(phytophothora parasitica pv.Nicotianae). Transcripts for antioxidant enzyme, glutathionine-S-transferase and catalase, were also more abundant in transgenic plants than wild-type plants. These result suggested that higher expression of those genes caused a broad-spectrum resistance to abiotic stress/biotic stress. These phenomena indicate that polyamines may play an important role in contributing to the antioxidant defense function in plants. Our findings suggest that facilitate the improvement of stress tolerance of crop plants.