PDH45 overexpressing transgenic tobacco and rice plants provide salinity stress tolerance via less sodium accumulation

Salinity stress negatively affects the crop productivity worldwide, including that of rice. Coping with these losses is a major concern for all countries. The pea DNA helicase, PDH45 is a unique member of helicase family involved in the salinity stress tolerance. However, the exact mechanism of the PDH45 in salinity stress tolerance is yet to be established. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the mechanism of PDH45-mediated salinity stress tolerance in transgenic tobacco and rice lines along with wild type (WT) plants using CoroNa Green dye based sodium localization in root and shoot sections. The results showed that under salinity stress root and shoot of PDH45 overexpressing transgenic tobacco and rice accumulated less sodium (Na+) as compared to their respective WT. The present study also reports salinity tolerant (FL478) and salinity susceptible (Pusa-44) varieties of rice accumulated lowest and highest Na+ level, respectively. All the varieties and transgenic lines of rice accumulate differential Na+ ions in root and shoot. However, roots accumulate high Na+ as compared to the shoots in both tobacco and rice transgenic lines suggesting that the Na+ transport in shoot is somehow inhibited. It is proposed that the PDH45 is probably involved in the deposition of apoplastic hydrophobic barriers and consequently inhibit Na+ transport to shoot and therefore confers salinity stress tolerance to PDH45 overexpressing transgenic lines. This study concludes that tobacco (dicot) and rice (monocot) transgenic plants probably share common salinity tolerance mechanism mediated by PDH45 gene.