Stress Tolerance of Transgenic Tomato Overexpressing a Germin Gene

In our completed studies, tomato plants  reduced expression at transcript and protein levels  oxalate oxidase under aluminum stress, but increased expression of the same gene under salt treatment. To understand  function of oxalate oxidase in  different types of abiotic stresses,  a germin gene encoding for oxalate oxidase was transformed into tomato CV “Money Maker”.  After five generations of self pollination, homozygous transgenic lines were obtained. These transgenic  lines  were confirmed by herbicide resistance  which is conferred  by bar gene, and PCR analysis using the gene-specific primer pair.  The enzyme activity of the oxalate oxidase was significantly higher in transgenic plants than nontransgenic plants. Tolerance to Al and salt stress of the transgenic tomato plants was evaluated  based on  physiological and phenotypic properties. The effect of overexpression of the foreign germin gene on whole genome expression in transgenic tomato were studied using microarray and proteomics analysis in order to determine the affected metabolic pathways.