Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 19(1): 25-33, 2009 (June)

Agrobacterium-mediated Transformation and Constitutive Expression of PgNHX1 from Pennisetum glaucum L. in Oryza sativa L. cv. Binnatoa

S.M. Touhidul Islam, R.S. Tammi, Sneh L. Singla-Pareek and Z.I. Seraj

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh

Key words: Salinity tolerance, PgNHX1, CaMV35S, Binnatoa

Abastract

In an effort to improve salinity tolerance in rice, the Pennisetum glaucum vacuolar Na+/H+ antiporter gene (PgNHX1) was transformed and expressed in Bangla-deshi rice Binnatoa under the constitutive promoter CaMV35S. Transgenic status of the plant was confirmed by PCR and Southern blot hybridization. RT-PCR and Western dot-blot analyses were performed to validate the expression of the transgene at RNA and protein levels, respectively. At 160 mM (ECe of 16 dS/m) NaCl stress the transgenic seedlings showed enhanced tolerance compared to controls.

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