Growth characteristics of SoSUT5 transgenic sugarcane

ObjectiveThe present study was carried out to investigate the influence of sucrose transporter SoSUT5 gene on main agronomic traits and related physiological and biochemical characteristics of sugarcane,and provide refe-rences for evalua-ting growth of the transgenic sugarcane and verifying the function of six SoSUT5 genes.MethodThe SoSUT5 transgenic sugarcane lines(T1,T2,T3,T6,T9 and T11)were verified by PCR amplification and sequencing. Taking wild sugarcane B8 plant as control,agronomic characters such as plant height,stem diameter,relative chlorophyll content and+1 leaf area were measured at seedling stage,tillering stage,elongation stage and mature stage respectively, and soluble sugar content in stem were determined at mature stage.ResultSix target gene sequence of SoSUT5 transge-nic sugarcane lines were obtained by PCR amplification and sequencing,indicating that the introduced SoSUT5 gene has been integrated into sugarcane genomic DNA. Except for line T6,the plant height,stem diameter and+1 leaf area in the other five lines were higher than those of control. Among them,the stem diameter and+1 leaf area of five transgenic su-garcane lines were significantly higher than those of control at mature stage(P<0.05,the same below),the plant height of T1,T2 and T9 and the relative chlorophyll content of T1,T2 and T11 were significantly higher than those of control. The soluble sugar content in the six transgenic lines were higher than the control at mature stage,among which,those of T2, T9 and T11 were extremely higher than that of control(P<0.01),and were 40.3%,40.3%and 33.4%higher than that of control respectively.ConclusionOverexpression of SoSUT5 gene in sugarcane can promote sugarcane growth and in-crease soluble sugar content. Therefore,it is inferred that this gene is related to sugar accumulation in the sugarcane inter-nodes and may promote the growth of sugarcane.