The yield difference between wild-type cotton and transgenic cotton that expresses IPT depends on when water-deficit stress is applied.

ABSTRACT: Drought is the No. 1 factor that limits agricultural production in the world, thus, making crops more drought tolerant is a major goal in agriculture. Many genes with functions in abiotic stress tolerance were identified, and overexpression of these genes confers increased drought tolerance in transgenic plants. The isopentenyltransferase gene (IPT) that encodes a rate limiting enzyme in cytokinin biosynthesis is one of them. Interestingly, when IPT-transgenic cotton was field-tested at two different sites, Texas and Arizona, different results were obtained. To explain this phenomenon, reduced irrigation experiments with different timing in applying water deficit stress were conducted. It was found that the timing of water deficit stress is critical for IPT-transgenic cotton to display its

SUBMITTER: Zhu X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5803251 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature