Pyramiding of three C4 specific genes towards yield enhancement in rice

• Published in: Plant cell, tissue and organ culture Vol. 128; no. 1; pp. 145 - 160
• Main Authors: Sen, Priyanka, Ghosh, Subhrajyoti, Sarkar, Sailendra Nath, Chanda, Palash, Mukherjee, Abhishek, Datta, Swapan Kumar, Datta, Karabi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 2017; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biomass; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Bundling; Carbon dioxide; Carbonic anhydrase; Carbonic anhydrases; Crop yield; Enzymes; Fixation; Gene expression; Genes; Grain; Hybridization; Integration; Leaves; Life Sciences; Original Article; Orthophosphate; Oryza sativa; Oryza sativa indica; Photosynthesis; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Pathology; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Plants; Plants (botany); Promoters; Pyruvic acid; Ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase; Rice; Sheaths; Transgenic plants; Photosynthetic efficiency; Anatomical variations; Transgenic rice; C4 enzymes; Absolute photosynthetic index; Yield enhancement
• ISSN: 0167-6857; 1573-5044
• DOI: 10.1007/s11240-016-1094-2

C 4 plants can efficiently accumulate CO 2 in leaves and thus reduce wasteful oxygen fixation by the RuBisCO enzyme. Three C 4 enzymes, namely carbonic anhydrase (CA), phosphoenol pyruvate (PEPC) and pyruvate orthophosphate dikinase (PPDK), were over expressed in Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica var. Khitish under the control of green tissue specific promoters PD 54o , PEPC and PPDK, respectively. Integration of these genes was confirmed by Southern hybridization. The relative expression of PEPC, CA and PPDK were, respectively, 6.75, 6.57 and 3.6-fold higher in transgenic plants compared to wild type plants (control). Photosynthetic efficiency of the transgenic plants increased significantly along with a 12 % increase in grain yield compared to wild type plants. Compared to control plants, transgenic plants also showed phenotypic changes such as increased leaf blade size, root biomass, and plant height and anatomical changes such as greater leaf vein number, bundle sheath cells, and bulliform cells. Our findings indicate that the combined over expression of these three enzymes is an efficient strategy for incorporating beneficial physiological and anatomical features that will enable subsequent yield enhancement in C 3 rice plants.