Overexpression of aspen sucrose synthase gene promotes growth and development of transgenic Arabidopsis plants

In plants, sucrose synthase (SUS) enzymes catalyze conversion of sucrose into fructose and UDP-glucose in the presence of UDP. To investigate the impact of overexpression of heterologous SUS on the growth and development of Arabidopsis, we transformed Arabidopsis plants with an overexpression vector containing an aspen SUS gene (PtrSUS1). The genomic PCR confirmed the successful integration of PtrSUS1 transgene in the Arabidopsis genome. PtrSUS1 expression in transgenic Arabidopsis plants was confirmed by RT-PCR. The SUS activity was dramatically increased in all transgenic lines examined. The three selected transgenic PtrSUS1 lines exhibited faster growth and flowered about 10 days earlier compared to untransformed controls, and also possessed 133%, 139%, and 143% SUS activity compared to controls. Both fresh weights and dry biomass yields of the whole plants from these three selected transgenic lines were significantly increased to 125% of the controls. Transgenic PtrSUS1 lines also had a higher tolerance to higher concentration of sucrose which was reflective of the increased SUS activity in transgenic versus wild-type plants. The growth differences between wild-type and transgenic plants, either in root and hypocotyl length or in fresh and dry weight of whole plant, became more pronounced on the media containing higher sucrose concentrations. Taken together, these results showed that the early flowering, faster growth and increased tolerance to higher sucrose in transgenic lines were caused by the genome integration and constitutive expression of the aspen PtrSUS1 gene in transgenic Arabidopsis.