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Genome interrogation for novel salinity tolerant Arabidopsis mutants
Author(s) -
Tol Niels,
Pinas Johan,
Schat Henk,
Hooykaas Paul J. J.,
Zaal Bert J.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plant, cell and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.646
H-Index - 200
eISSN - 1365-3040
pISSN - 0140-7791
DOI - 10.1111/pce.12805
Subject(s) - arabidopsis , salinity , biology , arabidopsis thaliana , gene , mutant , zinc finger , transcription factor , genetics , ecology
Soil salinity is becoming an increasingly large problem in agriculture. In this study, we have investigated whether a capacity to withstand salinity can be induced in the salinity sensitive plant species Arabidopsis thaliana , and whether it can be maintained in subsequent generations. To this end, we have used zinc finger artificial transcription factor (ZF‐ATFs) mediated genome interrogation. Already within a relatively small collection Arabidopsis lines expressing ZF‐ATFs, we found 41 lines that were tolerant to 100 mM NaCl. Furthermore, ZF‐ATF encoding gene constructs rescued from the most strongly salinity tolerant lines were indeed found to act as dominant and heritable agents for salinity tolerance. Altogether, our data provide evidence that a silent capacity to withstand normally lethal levels of salinity exists in Arabidopsis and can be evoked relatively easily by in trans acting transcription factors like ZF‐ATFs.