Lack of water is one of the most significant issues that already threaten world agriculture as many countries are unable to meet the demand for water to grow the crops. To make matters worse, the water availability is expected to fall by half by 2050, thus severely restricting agriculture production. Genetic engineering of crops to enhance their tolerance to such unfavorable environment represents one of the few approaches that can help us address this problem. Osmotin and osmotin-like proteins are stress proteins, belonging to the plant PR-5 group of proteins, which induced in response to various types of biotic and abiotic stresses in several plant species. Carrot plants were transformed with tobacco osmotin gene that encodes a protein lacking 20 amino-acid sequence at the C terminal end under the control of CaMV 35S promoter using the Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method. The gene integration and expression were confirmed by Southern and Western blot analyses and the transgenic plants were evaluated for their ability to tolerate drought stress. Under drought conditions, transformants exhibited slower rates of wilting compared to the wild-type and gained the ability to recover faster than their untransformed counterparts when the drought stress was alleviated. Under water stress, transformants showed lower levels of H2O2 accumulation, reduced lipid peroxidation and electrolyte leakage, and higher leaf water content. Taken together with some earlier reports, our results provide additional evidence for the protective ability of tobacco osmotin protein against drought stress and suggest a possible means to achieve tolerance against a serious type of abiotic stress.

Putative cotton cDNA clones and cognate genomic clones for a palmitoyl-acyl carrier protein (ACP) thioesterase (PATE) and an osmotin-like pathogenesis-related 5 (PR5) protein have been isolated and characterized. PATE is a class B fatty acid thioesterase with specificity for saturated long-chain fatty acids such as palmitate, and is implicated as a key enzyme to be targeted for regulation of fatty acid synthesis in order to alter cotton seed oil profiles. A nearly full-length 1.7-kb cDNA clone was isolated using a hybridization probe derived from an Arabidopsis PATE cDNA clone designated TE 3-2. A 17-kb genomic segment encompassing the PATE gene was also isolated, which has six exons and five introns with high sequence identity with other FatB cDNA/gene sequences. The deduced PATE preprotein amino acid sequence of 413 residues has putative signal sequences for targeting to the chloroplast stroma. PR5 proteins called osmotins are made in response to fungal pathogen stress or osmotic stress (water deprivation or salt exposure). Osmotins may actually form pores in fungal membranes, leading to osmotic rupture and destruction of the fungal cells. A cotton osmotin-like PR5 cDNA insert of 1,052 base-pairs was isolated and shown to encode a preprotein of 242 amino acids and is predicted to be secreted to the extracellular matrix as a neutral isoform. The deduced amino acid sequence has 16 cysteine residues that are highly conserved in osmotin-like proteins and are important in stabilizing the three-dimensional structure seen in thaumatin, zeamatin, and PR5-d. The intronless cognate cotton genomic clone has two putative ethylene response elements (GCC boxes) found in other PR5 gene promoter regions, as well as several tentative promoter/enhancer elements possibly involved in spatial/temporal gene expression.

The expression of two cotton osmotin genes was evaluated in terms of the mRNA and protein expression patterns in response to chemical inducers such as ethylene, hydrogen peroxide, and sodium chloride. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactions (RT-PCR) indicated that osmotin mRNAs are expressed constitutively in root tissues of cotton plants, and that they are rapidly induced in leaf and stem tissues upon ethylene treatment. Real time RT-PCR indicated that osmotin transcript levels were induced 2 to 4 h after treatment with ethephon. The osmotin mRNA levels appear to increase 12 h after treatment, decrease, and then increase again. The osmotin protein expression patterns were analyzed in Western blot analyses using an anti-osmotin antibody preparation. A 24-KDa protein band was detected from cotton plants treated with the inducers. The 24-KDa osmotin proteins were induced 4 h after treatment with ethephon, while down-regulated 96 h after treatment. Multiple osmotin isoforms were observed to be induced in cotton plants upon treatment with ethephon by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. One goal of this dissertation research was to genetically engineer two cotton osmotin genes to routinely overproduce their antifungal proteins in transgenic Arabidopsis and cotton plants as a natural defense against fungal infections, using co-cultivation with Agrobacterium tumefaciens cells harboring pCAMBIA 2301 vector constructs containing the osmotin genes. Many transgenic Arabidopsis and cotton plants were generated. However, genomic blotting analyses indicated the absence of the osmotin transgenes, but the presence of GUS genes from the vector cassette. Alkaline blot analyses of the vector DNAs from transformed Agrobacterium cells confirmed that an anomalous DNA structural rearrangement or aberrant recombination event probably occurred in the Agrobacterium cells, interdicting the integration of osmotin transgenes into the Arabidopsis and cotton plants. This research provides crucial baseline information on expression of cotton osmotin mRNAs and proteins.

Three overlapping genomic clones covering 29.0 kilobases of cotton DNA were found to encompass a cluster of two presumptive osmotin genes (OSMI and OSMII) and two osmotin pseudogenes (OSMIII and OSMIV). A segment of 16,007 basepairs of genomic DNA was sequenced from the overlapping genomic clones (GenBank Accessions AY303690 and AF304007). The two cotton osmotin genes were found to have open reading frames of 729 basepairs without any introns, and would encode presumptive osmotin preproteins of 242 amino acids. The open reading frames of the genes are identical in sequence to two corresponding cDNA clones (GenBank Accessions AF192271 and AY301283). The two cDNA inserts are almost full-length, since one lacks codons for the four N-terminal amino acids, and the other cDNA insert lacks the coding region for the 34 N-terminal amino acids. The cotton osmotin preproteins can be identified as PR5 proteins from their similarities to the deduced amino acid sequences of other plant osmotin PR5 preproteins. The preproteins would have N-terminal signal sequences of 24 amino acids, and the mature 24 kilodalton isoforms would likely be targeted for extracellular secretion. Prospective promoter elements, including two ethylene response elements, implicated as being positive regulatory elements in the expression of a number of PR-proteins, occur in the 5'-flanking regions. The mature osmotin proteins accumulate in cotton plants treated with the inducers ethephon and hydrogen peroxide. Thus, the two cotton osmotin genes encode osmotin proteins. The coding regions of the two genes have been expressed and isolated as fusion polypeptides in a bacterial expression system. Binary constructs containing the open reading frames of the two osmotin genes under the control of the 35S CaMV promoter have been generated for eventual production of transgenic Arabidopsis and cotton plants for potential constitutive expression of the osmotin proteins for increased resistance against fungal pathogens.