Genes for enhancing salt and drought tolerance in plants and methods of use
AssigneeUT-Battelle, LLC
InventorsXiaohan Yang, Degao Liu, Rongbin Hu, Gerald A. Tuskan
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Abstract
The present disclosure provides methods for increasing drought resistance, salt resistance, photosynthetic rate, biomass production and water-use efficiency of a plant. The methods encompass expression of CAM-specific a phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) in the plant. In comparison to a plant not manipulated in this manner, the disclosed, genetically-modified, plants display improved drought resistance and salt resistance. Also provided are plants that can be obtained by the method according to the invention, and nucleic acid vectors to be used in the described methods.
Claims24
A method comprising:
- (i) introducing into a C3 or C4 plant cell a nucleic acid encoding a crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM)-specific phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (CAM-PEPC) from Agave Americana,
- (ii) producing a C3 or C4 plant from the plant cell and expressing the CAM-PEPC in the plant, wherein the CAM-PEPC is the only CAM-specific protein expressed in the plant, wherein expression of the CAM-PEPC improves resistance to drought and high salt in the plant as compared to a C3 or C4 plant without the expression of a CAM-PEPC, and
- (iii) growing the plant under conditions that include a period of drought or high salt.
A method of producing increased biomass under conditions that include a period of drought or high salt comprising:
- (i) providing a C3 or C4 plant engineered to express a nucleic acid encoding a crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM)-specific phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (CAM-PEPC) from Agave Americana, wherein the CAM-PEPC is the only CAM-specific protein expressed in the plant cell wherein expression of the CAM-PEPC improves resistance to drought and high salt in the plant as compared to a C3 or C4 plant without the expression of a CAM-PEPC;
- and (ii) growing the plant under conditions that comprise conditions that include a period of drought or high salt;
- (iii) harvesting the plant expressing the CAM-PEPC to acquire the increased biomass.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.