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Physiology and Molecular Biology of Stress ... - KHAM PHA MOI

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264<br />

B. Rathinasabapathi <strong>and</strong> R. Kaur<br />

Certain plants that grow naturally in salt <strong>and</strong> drought conditions also manufacture<br />

methylated myo-inositol <strong>and</strong> its stereoisomers, like d-ononitol <strong>and</strong> pinitol (Ishitani<br />

et. al., 1997). Sheveleva et. al., (2000) showed that transgenic tobacco plants containing<br />

the myo-inositol-O-methyltransferase (IMT1) gene produced methylated inositol <strong>and</strong><br />

the transgenic plants had higher tolerance for drought <strong>and</strong> salt stress than the vector<br />

controls.<br />

3.1.2. Trehalose<br />

Trehalose is a non-reducing disaccharide that functions as an osmoprotectant. It<br />

successfully stabilizes dehydrated enzymes <strong>and</strong> lipid membranes. Many bacteria <strong>and</strong><br />

fungi accumulate trehalose. Only some plant species that can tolerate complete dehydration<br />

<strong>and</strong> spring back to life upon rehydration naturally accumulate trehalose (Goddijn<br />

<strong>and</strong> van Dun, 1999; Iturriaga et. al., 2000). Trehalose is synthesized in two steps from<br />

glucose-6-phosphate <strong>and</strong> uridine diphosphoglucose via trehalose-6-phosphate, in<br />

which the first step is mediated by trehalose phosphate synthase (TPS), <strong>and</strong> the second<br />

by trehalose-6-phosphate phosphatase (TPP) (Figure 3). In plants, trehalose-6-<br />

phosphate level is highly regulated by enzymes that either directly metabolizes it or by<br />

trehalase, which breaks down trehalose (Figure 3).<br />

Figure 3.<br />

Trehalose synthesis <strong>and</strong> metabolism<br />

Transgenic tobacco, expressing a bacterial trehalose-6-phosphate phosphatase<br />

(OtsB) gene showed better growth under drought stress (Pilon-Smits et. al., 1995). In<br />

addition, transgenic tobacco plants possessing yeast trehalose-6-phosphate synthetase<br />

gene (TPS1) exhibited improved drought tolerance (Romero et. al., 1997). Potato plants<br />

expressing genes for the trehalose synthesis showed unanticipated morphological<br />

changes <strong>and</strong> modification <strong>of</strong> structural carbohydrates (Yeo et. al., 2000). Therefore, a

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