Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2019, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (1): 23-36.DOI: 10.11983/CBB18064

• EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNICATIONS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Heterologous Overexpression of Autophagy-related Gene OsATG8b from Rice Confers Tolerance to Nitrogen/Carbon Starvation and Increases Yield in Arabidopsis

Xiaoxi Zhen,Haoran Liu,Xin Li,Fan Xu(),Wenzhong Zhang()   

  1. Key Laboratory of Northern Japonica Rice Genetics and Breedings, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Northeast Rice Biology and Breeding, Ministry of Agriculture, Rice Research Institute, Shenyang Agriculture University, Shenyang 110866, China
  • Received:2018-03-12 Accepted:2018-07-16 Online:2019-01-30 Published:2019-07-31
  • Contact: Fan Xu,Wenzhong Zhang

Abstract: Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth and development and plays an important role in plant yield and quality. Autophagy is a conserved degradation-recycle pathway of cellular components in eukaryotes that plays an important role in nitrogen remobilization during plant growth and grain formation. We identified an autophagy core gene OsATG8b in rice and obtained 2 independent 35S-OsATG8b transgenic Arabidopsis homozygous lines. The expression of OsATG8b responded to nitrogen starvation in rice. Overexpression of OsATG8b promoted the growth and development of transgenic Arabidopsis, with rosette leaves larger than wild-type leaves. In addition, the yield increased significantly, by 15.16%. In addition, overexpression of OsATG8b could significantly enhance autophagic activity in leaves of transgenic Arabidopsis under nitrogen deficiency and effectively alleviate the growth inhibition of transgenic Arabidopsis caused by nitrogen and carbon stress. OsATG8b may be a good candidate gene for increasing nitrogen use efficiency and yield.

Key words: autophagy, OsATG8b, nitrogen remobilization, yield