NOS overexpression confers adaptive advantages to bacteria and plants during nitrogen deficiency

DEL CASTELLO FIORELLA; FORESI NOELIA PAMELA; CORREA ARAGUNDE NATALIA; LAMATTINA LORENZO

MAr del Plata

Congreso; LI Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigacion en Bioquimica y Biología Molecular; 2015

Sociedad Argentina de Investigacion en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular de Plantas

Nitric oxide (NO) is a free radical that acts as a signal molecule in diverse biological processes. In plants, NO acts as a promoter of growth and development and participate in defense responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. The enzyme nitric oxide synthase (NOS) catalyzes the biosynthesis of NO. In 2010, our laboratory characterized the first NOS enzyme from the plant kingdom belonging to the green alga Ostreococcus tauri (OtNOS). Moreover, bioinformatics studies allowed to find a NOS sequence in the cyanobacteria Synechococcus PCC7335 (SyNOS), with a N-terminal globin domain that differences of canonical NOS. The objective of this work is to analyze the impact of NOS from photosynthetic organisms on nitrogen (N) assimilation in plants and bacteria. Results indicate that in E. coli cultures expressing OtNOS and SyNOS have increased growth rate respect to bacteria expressing the empty vector growing in N deficient media. We have generated Arabidopsis transgenic plants expressing SyNOS under the constitutive 35S promoter. We are currently conducting analysis to detect SyNOS transcript and protein levels and phenotype of these transgenic plants growing under optimal and suboptimal N conditions. The generation of biotechnological tools to increase the efficiency of plants in N assimilation will allow the development of strategies to increase yields in commercial crops.