Environmental Stress Tolerance

Salt tolerance

Zhang, Hong-Xia; Blumwald, Eduardo.  2001.  Transgenic salt tolerant tomato plants accumulate salt in the foliage but not in the fruits. Nature Biotechnology 19:765 - 768    
Overexpression of the vacuolar sodium pump enabled tomato plants to grow and produce fruits at salt concentrations that prevented growth of normal tomato plants.  25% of the irrigated land in the world has been damaged by excess salt accumulation.  These results suggest that biotechnology will help breeders to produce crop plants that can produce good yields on these salt damaged soils.

Bohnert, Hans J et al.  A genomics approach towards salt stress tolerance. In: Plant Physiology and Biochemistry (Paris) March-April, 2001. 39 (3-4): 295-311.  Abstract

Blumwald, Eduardo.  Sodium transport and salt tolerance in plants. In: Current Opinion in Cell Biology August, 2000. 12 (4): 431-434. Abstract    
Certain plants have the ability to tolerate high salt concentrations by maintaining low salt concentrations in the cytosol. Proteins that pump sodium from the cytosol into the vacuole have a critical role because overexpression of this sodium pump enabled Arabidopsis plants to tolerate a salt concentration that would otherwise have prevented growth.

Blumwald, Eduardo; Aharon, Gilad S.; Apse, Maris P..  Sodium transport in plant cells. In: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta May 1, 2000. 1465 (1-2): 140-151. Abstract
Excess sodium salt limits agricultural productivity in many areas.  This article reviews the mechanisms of salt entry, extrusion and compartmentation in plants. Progress on cloning of proteins involved in salt transport is discussed.

Palma, David A.; Blumwald, Eduardo; Plaxton, William. C.. pregulation of vacuolar H+-translocating pyrophosphatase by phosphate starvation of Brassica napus (rapeseed) suspension cell cultures. In: FEBS Letters 8 December, 2000. 486 (2): 155-158.  Abstract

Apse, Maris P.; Aharon, Gilad S.; Snedden, Wayne A.; Blumwald, Eduardo. Salt tolerance conferred by overexpression of a vacuolar Na+/H+ antiport in Arabidopsis. In: Science (Washington D C) Aug. 20, 1999. 285 (5431): 1256-1258. Abstract

Glenn, Edward P.; Brown, J. Jed; Blumwald, Eduardo. Salt tolerance and crop potential of halophytes. In: Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences March, 1999. 18 (2): 227-255. Abstract
 

Osmotic stress tolerance

Barthakur S, Babu V, Bansal KC. 2001.  Over-expression of osmotin induces proline accumulation and confers tolerance to osmotic stress in transgenic tobacco.  J Plant Biochem Biotechnol 10, 31-37

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Biotech tomato in search of a market, AP 18aug2001