Genetic engineering of the biosynthesis of glycinebetaine enhances photosynthesis against high temperature stress in transgenic tobacco plants.

Genetically engineered tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) with the ability to synthesis glycinebetaine was established by introducing the BADH gene for betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase from spinach (Spinacia oleracea). The genetic engineering enabled the plants to accumulate glycinebetaine mainly in chloroplasts and resulted in enhanced tolerance to high temperature stress during growth of young seedlings. Moreover, CO2 assimilation of transgenic plants was significantly more tolerant to high temperatures than that of wild-type plants. The analyses of chlorophyll fluorescence and the activation of Rubisco indicated that the enhancement of photosynthesis to high temperatures was not related to the function of photosystem II but to the Rubisco activase-mediated activation of Rubisco. Western-blotting analyses showed that high temperature stress led to the association of Rubisco activase with the thylakoid membranes from the stroma fractions. However, such an association was much more pronounced in wild-type plants than in transgenic plants. The results in this study suggest that under high temperature stress, glycinebetaine maintains the activation of Rubisco by preventing the sequestration of Rubisco activase to the thylakoid membranes from the soluble stroma fractions and thus enhances the tolerance of CO2 assimilation to high temperature stress. The results seem to suggest that engineering of the biosynthesis of glycinebetaine by transformation with the BADH gene might be an effective method for enhancing high temperature tolerance of plants.