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Silencing of PMT expression caused a surge of anatabine accumulation in tobacco

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Abstract

Drastic increase of anatabine levels was observed in tobacco plants with markedly reduced nicotine concentrations through RNA silencing approaches. By down-regulation of PMT through three kinds of RNA silencing approaches, the nicotine levels decreased accordingly. In lines with slight and moderate reduction of nicotine levels, no anticipated negative linear correlation was found between anatabine and nicotine content. In lines with nicotine levels lower than 2.7 mg/g, drastic elevation of anatabine levels was found. Transcriptional levels of QPRT were unaffected in tobacco lines with surged anatabine levels. This report of an intriguing mutual relationship of nicotine and anatabine sheds new light on mechanisms between metabolic regulations in plants, and reconfirms complexity of metabolic networks.

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Abbreviations

PMT:

Putrescine N-methyltransferase

RT-QPCR:

Real-time Quantitative PCR

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Acknowledgments

We thank David R. Moore at Targacept, USA for providing sample of anatabine, Peter Waterhouse at Plant Industry, CSIRO, Australia for providing the plasmid pHANNIBAL, and Jingjing Liang, Ying Shen and Wei Mao for technical helps. We appreciate the anonymous reviewers’ suggestions and Audrey Seedman’s revision. This work was funded by National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2007CB108805), China Transgenic Research Program (2008ZX08002-001) and Shanghai Science and Technology Committee (08391911800).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center, Morgan-Tan International Center for Life Sciences, Fudan University, 200433, Shanghai, China

    Peng Wang, Jia Zeng, Zhifeng Liang, Xiaofen Sun & Kexuan Tang

  2. Plant Biotechnology Research Center, Fudan-SJTU-Nottingham Plant Biotechnology R&D Center, School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200030, Shanghai, China

    Zhiqi Miao & Kexuan Tang

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  1. Peng Wang
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  2. Jia Zeng
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  3. Zhifeng Liang
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  4. Zhiqi Miao
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  5. Xiaofen Sun
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  6. Kexuan Tang
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Correspondence to Xiaofen Sun or Kexuan Tang.

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Wang, P., Zeng, J., Liang, Z. et al. Silencing of PMT expression caused a surge of anatabine accumulation in tobacco. Mol Biol Rep 36, 2285–2289 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-009-9446-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-009-9446-1

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