Improved drought tolerance without undesired side effects in transgenic plants producing trehalose

Sazzad Karim1, Henrik Aronsson, Henrik Ericson

  • 1School of Life Sciences, University of Skövde, Box 408, 541 28, Skövde, Sweden.

Summary

Transgenic plants engineered for trehalose (a sugar) production show enhanced drought tolerance. This study presents three strategies to improve stress tolerance in plants without causing growth defects, by optimizing trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) and trehalose-6-phosphate phosphatase (TPP) gene expression.

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