I.C.A.

R- Indian Agricultural Research Institute

Division of Biochemistry
Current Topics in Biochemistry BIO-701
Theme: Metabolic Engineering
Topic: Role of vitamin E on abiotic stress
tolerance in plants
What is stress?

Stress can be defined as the degree to which one feel overwhelmed

or unable to cope as a result of pressures that are unmanageable
What happens during stress?
What are reactive oxygen species (R.O.S) ?
Vitamin – E or Tocopherols
What happened till now ?
In sweet potato, drought In Arabidopsis, 37 % in
and oxidative stress leaves and 28% in seeds

In lettuce, 4-fold α-
In sweet potato, strongly
tocopherol and 2.6 –fold
under drought
γ-tocopherol

In sweet potato, strongly In soybean, no increase in

under salt stress total tocopherol content

In sweet potato, strongly In Arabidopsis, 7-fold

under salt stress increase in total
tocopherol content.
Case study I.F = 3.8
(2019)
 Work Plan

Xu Shu 29

16 h light/ 25 ± 3 ° C
8 h dark

1. Total tocopherol content

2. Salt stress treatment
3. Drought stress treatment
4. Oxidative stress treatment
5. Chlorophyll content
6. Photosynthetic activity
Phylogenetic analysis of TC
 ORF of 1461 bp
 487 amino acids (GenBank accession number KP306524)

IbTC ( Ipomoea batatas ) shares 85% sequence similarity with NtTC ( Nicotiana
tabacum) and StTC (Solanum tuberosum)
Generation of transgenic sweet potato plants overexpressing IbTC

Three lines (TC2, TC9, and TC11) showing higher IbTC transcript levels than
other lines were selected for further characterization
TC plants display enhanced α-tocopherol content in leaves

Leaves Tubers
TC plants exhibit increased tolerance to salt stress

Overexpression of IbTC increases salt tolerance of sweet potato

plants.
 TC plants show increased drought tolerance

Overexpression of IbTC increases drought tolerance of sweet potato plants.

 TC plants exhibit enhanced tolerance to oxidative stress

TC plants showed greater resistance to Mv-mediated oxidative stress than NT plants

Conclusion
• The researchers have successfully generated transgenic sweet potato plants
overexpressing IbTC.
• TC plants showed higher α-tocopherol content in leaves than NT plants.
• The results suggest that accumulation of α-tocopherol enables plants to overcome
various environmental stresses.
• The enzyme tocopherol cyclase (TC) is better target for engineering to accumulate
more tocopherols.
• Tocopherols act as potent antioxidant which protects the cell membrane.