Abstract
Enhancing crop water use efficiency (WUE) is a key target trait for climatic resilience and expanding cultivation on marginal lands. Engineering lower stomatal density to reduce stomatal conductance (gs) has improved WUE in multiple C3 crop species. However, reducing gs in C3 species often reduces photosynthetic carbon gain. A different response is expected in C4 plants because they possess specialized anatomy and biochemistry which concentrates CO2 at the site of fixation. This modifies the relationship of photosynthesis (AN) with intracellular CO2 concentration (ci), such that photosynthesis is CO2 saturated and reductions in gs are unlikely to limit AN. To test this hypothesis, genetic strategies were investigated to reduce stomatal density in the C4 crop sorghum. Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allele in sorghum led to reduced stomatal densities, reduced gs, reduced plant water use, and avoidance of stress during a period of water deprivation. In addition, moderate reduction in stomatal density did not increase stomatal limitation to AN. However, these positive outcomes were associated with negative pleiotropic effects on reproductive development and photosynthetic capacity. Avoiding pleiotropy by targeting expression of the transgene to specific tissues could provide a pathway to improved agronomic outcomes.
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Claims 8
Claim · model-written summary
Constitutive synthetic EPF expression reduced stomatal density.
- Treatment
- Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Gene
- synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Outcome
- stomatal densitiese0
- Direction
- reducede0
SorghumNot reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allele in sorghum led to reduced stomatal densities, reduced gs, reduced plant water use, and avoidance of stress during a period of water deprivation.”
Claim · model-written summary
Constitutive synthetic EPF expression reduced stomatal conductance.
- Treatment
- Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Gene
- synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Outcome
- gse0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allele in sorghum led to reduced stomatal densities, reduced gs, reduced plant water use, and avoidance of stress during a period of water deprivation.”
Claim · model-written summary
Constitutive synthetic EPF expression reduced plant water use.
- Treatment
- Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Gene
- synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Outcome
- plant water usee0
- Direction
- reducede0
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allele in sorghum led to reduced stomatal densities, reduced gs, reduced plant water use, and avoidance of stress during a period of water deprivation.”
Claim · model-written summary
Constitutive synthetic EPF expression helped avoid stress during water deprivation.
- Treatment
- Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Gene
- synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allelee0
- Outcome
- avoidance of stress during a period of water deprivatione0
Not reportedComparatorDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Constitutive expression of a synthetic epidermal patterning factor (EPF) transgenic allele in sorghum led to reduced stomatal densities, reduced gs, reduced plant water use, and avoidance of stress during a period of water deprivation.”
Claim · model-written summary
Moderately reduced stomatal density did not increase stomatal limitation to photosynthesis.
- Organ / stage
- stomatale0
- Outcome
- stomatal limitation to ANe0
- Direction
- did not increasee0
- Qualifier
- moderate reduction in stomatal densitye0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“moderate reduction in stomatal density did not increase stomatal limitation to AN.”
t0“C4 crop sorghum”
Claim · model-written summary
The transgenic changes had negative effects on reproductive development.
Not reportedTreatmentComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“these positive outcomes were associated with negative pleiotropic effects on reproductive development and photosynthetic capacity.”
t0“C4 crop sorghum”
Claim · model-written summary
The transgenic changes had negative effects on photosynthetic capacity.
Not reportedTreatmentComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“these positive outcomes were associated with negative pleiotropic effects on reproductive development and photosynthetic capacity.”
t0“C4 crop sorghum”
Claim · model-written summary
Tissue-specific transgene expression could improve agronomic outcomes by avoiding pleiotropy.
- Treatment
- targeting expression of the transgene to specific tissuese0
- Outcome
- improved agronomic outcomese0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Avoiding pleiotropy by targeting expression of the transgene to specific tissues could provide a pathway to improved agronomic outcomes.”
t0“C4 crop sorghum”
The same questions in other papers
transgenic · physiology: water · SorghumResults agree
1 paper in the same direction as this paper
- positive
Claims are grouped by organism, treatment and what was measured or targeted. A paper counts as positive when any of its claims in the group is positive.