Gene pyramiding for boosted plant growth and broad abiotic stress tolerance

Abiotic stresses such as salinity, heat and drought seriously impair plant growth and development, causing a significant loss in crop yield and ornamental value. Biotechnology approaches manipulating specific genes prove to be effective strategies in crop trait modification. The Arabidopsis vacuolar pyrophosphatase gene AVP1, the rice SUMO E3 ligase gene OsSIZ1 and the cyanobacterium flavodoxin gene Fld have previously been implicated in regulating plant stress responses and conferring enhanced tolerance to different abiotic stresses when individually overexpressed in various plant species. We have explored the feasibility of combining multiple favourable traits brought by individual genes to acquire superior plant performance. To this end, we have simultaneously introduced AVP1, OsSIZ1 and Fld in creeping bentgrass. Transgenic (TG) plants overexpressing these three genes performed significantly better than wild type controls and the TGs expressing individual genes under both normal and various abiotic stress conditions, exhibited significantly enhanced plant growth and tolerance to drought, salinity and heat stresses as well as nitrogen and phosphate starvation, which were associated with altered physiological and biochemical characteristics and delicately fine-tuned expression of genes involved in plant stress responses. Our results suggest that AVP1, OsSIZ1 and Fld function synergistically to regulate plant development and plant stress response, leading to superior overall performance under both normal and adverse environments. The information obtained provides new insights into gene stacking as an effective approach for plant genetic engineering. A similar strategy can be extended for the use of other beneficial genes in various crop species for trait modifications, enhancing agricultural production.