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Co-overexpression of AVP1 and AtNHX1 in Cotton Further Improves Drought and Salt Tolerance in Transgenic Cotton Plants

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Abstract

Salinity and drought are two major environmental stresses that limit the growth and productivity of cotton. To improve cotton’s drought and salt tolerance, transgenic cotton plants expressing the Arabidopsis vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter gene AtNHX1 and H+-pyrophosphatase gene AVP1 were produced by cross-pollination of two single-gene-overexpressing plants. The salt tolerance and drought tolerance were further enhanced by simultaneously overexpressing AVP1 and AtNHX1 in comparison to AVP1 or AtNHX1 single-gene-overexpressing plants and to wild-type plants. Plant height, boll number, and fiber yield of AVP1/AtNHX1-co-overexpressing plants were higher than those of AVP1-overexpressing, AtNHX1-overexpressing, segregated non-transgenic line, and wild-type plants under saline and drought conditions. The photosynthetic rate of AVP1/AtNHX1-co-overexpressing plants was significantly higher than that of single-gene-overexpressing and wild-type plants under 200 mM NaCl treatment. In addition, the root systems of AVP1/AtNHX1-co-overexpressing plants were larger than those of single-gene-overexpressing and wild-type plants, which was likely due to increased auxin polar transport in the root systems of the AVP1/AtNHX1-co-overexpressing plants. Moreover, these AVP1/AtNHX1-co-overexpressing cotton plants produced 24 % higher fiber yield under low-irrigation conditions and 35 % higher fiber yield under dryland conditions as compared to wild-type cotton in the field.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China to Guoxin Shen (31170793), the National Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang province to Guoxin Shen (Z12C130011), and the program of Shaoxing 330 Overseas Elites to Guoxin Shen. This work was also supported by a national research initiative competitive grant (no. 2007-35100-18382) from USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sericultural Research Institute, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China

    Guoxin Shen, Jia Wei & Xiaoyun Qiu

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA

    Rongbin Hu, Sundaram Kuppu & Hong Zhang

  3. Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, 79409, USA

    Dick Auld

  4. Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Eduardo Blumwald

  5. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Roberto Gaxiola

  6. USDA Cropping Systems Research Laboratory, Lubbock, TX, 79415, USA

    Paxton Payton

Authors
  1. Guoxin Shen
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  2. Jia Wei
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  3. Xiaoyun Qiu
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  4. Rongbin Hu
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  5. Sundaram Kuppu
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  6. Dick Auld
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  7. Eduardo Blumwald
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  8. Roberto Gaxiola
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  9. Paxton Payton
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  10. Hong Zhang
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Correspondence to Guoxin Shen or Hong Zhang.

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Guoxin Shen and Jia Wei are co-first authors.

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Shen, G., Wei, J., Qiu, X. et al. Co-overexpression of AVP1 and AtNHX1 in Cotton Further Improves Drought and Salt Tolerance in Transgenic Cotton Plants. Plant Mol Biol Rep 33, 167–177 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-014-0739-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-014-0739-8

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