TRANSFORMATION OF MANITOL 1- PHOSPHATE DEHYDROGENASE (MTLD) GENE INTO CANOLA (BRASSICA NAPUS L.) TO IMPROVE SALINITY TOLERANCE

FAKHERI BARAT ALI^1*, FOROUZAN HEIDARI²

¹Fakheri, Faculty of Agriculture, Dep. of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, university of Zabol, Zabol, Iran - ² Faculty of Agriculture, Dep. of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, university of Zabol, Zabol, Iran

Abiotic stresses such as salinity are one of the important factors that limit crops production worldwide. One suitable method for inducing salinity resistance is osmolytes production increase in plants. In this study, biosynthetic gene which produces osmolyte manitol (mtlD gene) was transferred to Brassica napus L. to increase salinity tolerance. AGLO1 strain of Agrobacterium tumefaciens carrying pBI121 transformation vector, containing mtlD and nptII (transformed plant selectable marker) gene were used for transformation of SLM046 cultivar of B. napus L. Hypocotyl explants were utilized for regeneration of canola plants. PCR analysis of transgenic plants depicted a resemblance in the observed band size and expected band of 500 and 680 bp for the nptII and mtlD genes, respectively. Extracted DNA of transgenic plants, just the same as extracted plasmid containing mtlD gene, revealed a colored blot on a positively charged nylon membrane, while wild-type plants revealed no colored blot. Transformation efficiency was 4.7%. Tolerance threshold against NaCl in wild type and transgenic seeds germination were 250 and 350 mM of NaCl. Thus, Gene transformation into B. napus L. led to the synthesis of mannitol 1-phosphate dehydrogenase that improves its salinity tolerance ability.