Fateh Khatib(1) and Tasneem Khayata Bsata*(1)
(1) Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Aleppo University. Aleppo, Syria.
(*corresponding author: Tasneem Bsata E-Mail: simobsat@gmail.com).
Received: 31/05/2020 Accepted: 7/07/2020
Abstract
Lentil crop is exposed to many environmental stresses, which reduce its productivity. Genetic engineering was used in gene transferring from different organisms into plants; in a way that cannot be achieved by conventional breeding. Mainly, gene transferring enhanced the performance of plants in the field as well as their tolerance to some of biotic and abiotic stresses. Glutathione S-Transferase (GST) genes are characterized by their ability to detoxify xenobiotics including herbicides. GST enzyme is considered as one of the antioxidant enzymes, which scavenge the reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, The Reverse Transcription technique was used to detect the expression of GST gene in lentil, comparing to actin as an endogenous gene. Furthermore, the antioxidant activity of GST enzymes was tested in inhibiting the free radical substrate DPPH• (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhdrazyl). The result of reverse transcription (RT)-PCR detected the expression of GST gene in the transgenic plants, which indicates the transcription into mRNA and the fact that no pre-transcription silencing at this stage was occurred. The transgenic line A7 exhibited tolerance to glyphosate and 2.4-D herbicides with 0.5, 1, 2 mM. Different inhibition percentages were scored according to the event of the transgenic lines. The Statistical analysis showed significant differences in the rate of inhibition of free radical DPPH, between the line A7 and the parental line ILL5588, where they reached 79.4% and 67.2%, respectively. Thus, the line A7 can be used in extended experiments under some biotic or abiotic stresses which may reveal the value of the transgene.
Key words: gene expression, reverse transcription, oxidative stress, reactive oxygen species, lentil.
Full paper in Arabic: PDF