Beneficial ‘unintended effects’ of a cereal cystatin in transgenic lines of potato, Solanum tuberosum

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Louis-Philippe Vaillancourt¹  Russell Tweddell¹  Aurélie Munger¹  Dominique Michaud¹  Frank Sainsbury¹  Line Cantin¹  Karine Coenen¹  Marie-Claire Goulet¹  Charles Goulet² 

[1] Centre de recherche en horticulture, Département de phytologie, Université Laval, Pavillon des Services, 2440 boul. Hochelaga, G1V 0A6, Québec, QC,, Canada;Centre de recherche en horticulture, Département de phytologie, Université Laval, Pavillon des Services, 2440 boul. Hochelaga, G1V 0A6, Québec, QC,, Canada;Horticulture Sciences Department, University of Florida, 32611, Gainesville, FL, USA;

关键词: Transgenic crops;    Transgene pleiotropy;    Unintended effects;    Stress/defense-related proteome;    Corn cystatin;    Solanum tuberosum;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2229-12-198

 received in 2012-07-04, accepted in 2012-10-29,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundStudies reported unintended pleiotropic effects for a number of pesticidal proteins ectopically expressed in transgenic crops, but the nature and significance of such effects in planta remain poorly understood. Here we assessed the effects of corn cystatin II (CCII), a potent inhibitor of C1A cysteine (Cys) proteases considered for insect and pathogen control, on the leaf proteome and pathogen resistance status of potato lines constitutively expressing this protein.ResultsThe leaf proteome of lines accumulating CCII at different levels was resolved by 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis and compared with the leaf proteome of a control (parental) line. Out of ca. 700 proteins monitored on 2-D gels, 23 were significantly up- or downregulated in CCII-expressing leaves, including 14 proteins detected de novo or up-regulated by more than five-fold compared to the control. Most up-regulated proteins were abiotic or biotic stress-responsive proteins, including different secretory peroxidases, wound inducible protease inhibitors and pathogenesis-related proteins. Accordingly, infection of leaf tissues by the fungal necrotroph Botryris cinerea was prevented in CCII-expressing plants, despite a null impact of CCII on growth of this pathogen and the absence of extracellular Cys protease targets for the inhibitor.ConclusionsThese data point to the onset of pleiotropic effects altering the leaf proteome in transgenic plants expressing recombinant protease inhibitors. They also show the potential of these proteins as ectopic modulators of stress responses in planta, useful to engineer biotic or abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants of economic significance.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Munger et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.