Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein genes are expressed by plants during the later stages of seed development, but may also be expressed when plants are exposed to environmental stresses. This means that engineering LEA genes into plants could give these plants a chance to survive under environmental stresses, such as salinity and drought.

In the September issue of the Journal of Plant Science, Byong-Jin Park of Tohoku University, Japan and colleagues report the successful “Genetic improvement of Chinese cabbage for salt and drought tolerance by constitutive expression of a B. napus LEA gene.” Chinese cabbage is an important vegetable in Asia, especially in China, Korea, and Japan.

Using Agrobacterium transformation, as well as the LEA gene from Brassica napus, researchers transformed cabbage cells, regenerated the plants, and subjected them to various stress conditions. They found that 1) transgenic cabbage germinated even at high salt concentrations, while non-transgenic cabbage did not; 2) seedlings of transgenic plants remained healthy during high salinity stress, while those of non-transgenic plants wilted; 3) non-transgenic plants wilted after two weeks of water deprivation, while transgenic plants continued to grow; and 4) resupplying water to the plants allowed transgenic plants to keep on growing, while non-transgenic plants were no longer able to recover.

Subscribers of ScienceDirect or the Journal of Plant Science can read the article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
j.plantsci.2005.05.008.