Analysis of ethylene receptor genes from petunia and arabidopsis

Abstract

The research work focused on ethylene receptors in petunia and the use of mutant forms of selected genes to confer desirable phenotypes to crop plants. Two new cDNA for ethylene receptors (PERS1 and PETR2) were cloned from petunia and functional analyses were carried out using petunia and/or Arabidopsis (heterologous host system).Both the putative receptors belong to the histidine kinase class. PERS1 lacks the receiver domain, which is present in PETR2. An attempt was made to characterize the protein complex for PERS1 in a transient expression system in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. The TAP-tag approach was used for this and preliminary results show that the protein forms a complex, which might be involved in ethylene signal transduction. Additionally, transgenic coriander plants with dominant negative mutant ERS1 of Arabidopsis were generated. Our data showed that the transgenic plants have delayed senescence. This demonstrates that expression of the dominant negative mutant gene in a heterologous species is useful or genetic improvement of crop plants