Agrobacterium-mediated Transformation Of Pea Ferritin Gene In Rice And Its Functional Studies

Ferritin is an iron binding and storage protein. It is thought to play an important role in preventing damage from oxidative stress. In this research, Pea ferritin gene was transferred into rice by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, in order to obtain rice with higher disease resistance and iron content.A pea ferritin gene under the control of a constitutive promoter, CaMV35S was constructed into pCambial302 vector. The constructed plasmid (pCam35Sfer) was introduced into an Agrobacterium strain, EHA105.Rice calli induced from mature embryos of a japonica cultivar xiushuill was transformed with Agrobacterium-rnediated transformation system. The efficiency of transformation was about 23.9%, and 105 transgenics were obtained.The results obtained by PCR and Southern blotting analysis demonstrated that ferritin gene had integrated into the genome of rice. The expression of ferritin gene was observed by Northern blotting analysis.Active oxygen species production induced by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae or Magnaporthe grisea was reduced or delayed in transformants comparing with the wild type plants. It suggests that ferritin could increase the capacity of plants agaist oxidative damage.Iron content in tissues of transformants was determined with significantly increased iron level in seed and leaf. This suggests the expression of ferritin gene in the transgenics and iron bind with ferritin in storage. Transgenics expressing ferritin gene could have an elevated the antioxidant capacity, and an increased iron content which might provide a clue to overcome the problem of iron deficient.