TRANSGENIC TOBACCO WITH RICE FAE GENE EXHIBITS HIGHER WATER USE EFFICIENCY

The rice FAE encodes protein for fatty acids elongation to form very long chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), which are the intermediates for wax biosynthesis. Agrobacterium-mediated transgenic tobacco plants bear rice fatty acid elongation gene (OsFAE), which has been incorporated into their genome. Amino acids multiple sequences alignment analysis reveals that rice FAE protein has sequence similarity with other fatty acids elongation and wax related proteins, especially corn FAE. Phylogenetic tree, a bioinformatics tool shows that OsFAE has a close evolutionary origin with that of maize FAE. Sense sequence of rice FAE gene incorporation to transgenic rice has consequently resulted into relatively more cuticular wax on leaf surface. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) illustrates that transgenic tobacco leaves have phenotypically higher cuticular waxes than of control. Our findings also suggest that the transgenic tobacco exhibits more water use efficiency (WUE) at both the 90% and 35% field capacity (FC) levels under non-stress and stressful conditions, respectively.