A new approach to protect tobacco plants from Cd contamination using the attenuated recombinant virus CMV△2b containing the PvSR2 gene

Abstract

Reducing the Cd content in crop plants is an important process for ensuring the safety of food made from the crop. In this study, the CMV△2b vector was used to express the PvSR2 gene to reduce the Cd content of Nicotiana benthamiana plants. The infectious clone plasmid pCB301-CMVFny209△2b-PvSR2 was successfully constructed. N. benthamiana plants at six leaf stages were inoculated with plasmid-Agrobacterium (GV3101) containing pCB301-CMVFny209△2b-PvSR2, pCB301-CMVFny109 and pCB301-CMVFny309 by agroinfiltration. After the virus had been detected in the non-inoculated leaves of the plant inoculated with plasmid-agrobacterium corresponding to each treatment, the plant of each treatments in the experiment were inoculated with sap of plant leaves containing the virus. After 8 days, the plants were treated with Cd++ solution. The Cd content of the plant samples was analyzed via inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry. The results show that the plants expressing the PvSR2 gene had greatly reduced Cd++ content than the control and grow normally. These results indicated that using the attenuated recombinant virus CMV△2b containing the PvSR2 gene significantly enhanced the resistance of the plant to Cd++. This is a new approach to protect tobacco plants from Cd contamination by using the attenuated recombinant virus CMV△2b containing the PvSR2 gene.

Keywords

• cmv△2b
• pvsr2 gene
• cd
• nicotiana benthamiana
• virus vector