van Tol Niels, Pinas Johan, Schat Henk, Hooykaas Paul J J, van der Zaal Bert J
Institute of Biology Leiden, Faculty of Science, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden, The Netherlands.
BioSolar Cells, 6700 AB, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Plant Cell Environ. 2016 Dec;39(12):2650-2662. doi: 10.1111/pce.12805. Epub 2016 Oct 7.
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.
土壤盐渍化在农业中已成为一个日益严重的问题。在本研究中，我们调查了盐敏感植物物种拟南芥是否能够被诱导出耐盐能力，以及这种能力能否在后代中得以维持。为此，我们采用了锌指人工转录因子（ZF-ATFs）介导的基因组探究方法。在表达ZF-ATFs的相对较小的拟南芥株系集合中，我们就发现了41个对100 mM NaCl耐受的株系。此外，从耐盐性最强的株系中拯救出的编码ZF-ATF的基因构建体，确实被发现可作为耐盐性的显性和可遗传因子。总之，我们的数据提供了证据，表明拟南芥中存在耐受通常致死水平盐渍化的潜在能力，并且可以通过像ZF-ATFs这样的反式作用转录因子相对容易地诱发出来。
