Improvement of Drought Tolerance in Transgenic Tobacco Plants by a Dehydrin-Like Gene Transfer

A full-length cDNA of dehydrin BcDh2 from Boea crassifolia and its antisense nucleotidesequence have been transferred into tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) NC89 under the controlof a caulifower mosaic virus 35S promoter. Under a progressive water stress, photosyntheticrate, transpiration rate and stomatal conductance of the sense and antisense plantsreduced, and those of the control reduced much more. Photosynthetic rate, transpirationrate and stomatal conductance of all plants tested increased significantly 24 hourslater after recoveried water supply, and those of the sense and antisense plants werehigher than control. These indicated that overexpression of a dehydrin gene in tobaccomay improve tolerance to water stress for plants, however, antisense BcDh2 gene intransgenic plant did not influence physiological conditions. The results of germinationexperiment of the transgenic seeds showed that on MS medium with different concentrationPEG (8000), sense seed could more endure drought than control, while antisense seed wassensitive to drought. The results suggested that the overexpression of a dehydrin genein tobacco might improve the tolerance to water stress for plants.