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Improvement of heat and drought photosynthetic tolerance in wheat by overaccumulation of glycinebetaine

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Abstract

Within their natural habitat, crops are often subjected to drought and heat stress, which suppress crop growth and decrease crop production. Causing overaccumulation of glycinebetaine (GB) has been used to enhance the crop yield under stress. Here, we investigated the response of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) photosynthesis to drought, heat stress and their combination with a transgenic wheat line (T6) overaccumulating GB and its wild-type (WT) Shi4185. Drought stress (DS) was imposed by controlling irrigation until the relative water content (RWC) of the flag leaves decreased to between 78 and 82%. Heat stress (HS) was applied by exposing wheat plants to 40°C for 4 h. A combination of drought and heat stress was applied by subjecting the drought-stressed plants to a heat stress as above. The results indicated that all stresses decreased photosynthesis, but the combination of drought and heat stress exacerbated the negative effects on photosynthesis more than exposure to drought or heat stress alone. Drought stress decreased the transpiration rate (Tr), stomatal conductance (Gs) and intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), while heat stress increased all of these; the deprivation of water was greater under drought stress than heat stress, but heat stress decreased the antioxidant enzyme activity to a greater extent. Overaccumulated GB could alleviate the decrease of photosynthesis caused by all stresses tested. These suggest that GB induces an increase of osmotic adjustments for drought tolerance, while its improvement of the antioxidative defense system including antioxidative enzymes and antioxidants may be more important for heat tolerance.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Prof. S. Y. Chen (Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) for her kindly presentation of the transgenic wheat lines to us. This study is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30671259) and by National Key technology R&D program (No. 2006BAD01A02-15).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Crop Science/College of Life Science, Shandong Agricultural University, Daizong Street 61, Tai’an, 271018, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Gui-Ping Wang, Zhen Hui, Feng Li, Mei-Rong Zhao, Jin Zhang & Wei Wang

  2. Shandong Institute of Pomology, Tai’an, 271000, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Gui-Ping Wang

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  1. Gui-Ping Wang
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  2. Zhen Hui
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Correspondence to Wei Wang.

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Wang, GP., Hui, Z., Li, F. et al. Improvement of heat and drought photosynthetic tolerance in wheat by overaccumulation of glycinebetaine. Plant Biotechnol Rep 4, 213–222 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-010-0139-y

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