Glyphosate-induced GhAG2 is involved in resistance to salt stress in cotton.

KEY MESSAGE: The transcription of GhAG2 was strongly enhanced by glyphosate treatment. Overexpression of GhAG2 could improve plant tolerance to salt and salicylic acid stress. Although glyphosate has been widely used as an herbicide over the past decade owing to its high efficacy on weed controls and worldwide commercialization of glyphosate-resistant crops, little is known about the glyphosate-induced responses and transcriptional changes in cotton plants. Here, we report the identification of 26 differentially expressed genes after glyphosate treatment, among which, six highly up-regulated sequences share homology to cotton expressed sequence tags (ESTs) responsive to abiotic stresses. In addition, we cloned GhAG2, a gene whose transcription was strongly enhanced by glyphosate treatment and other abiotic stresses. Transgenic GhAG2 plants showed improved tolerance to salt, and salicylic acid (SA) stress. The results could open the door to exploring the function of the GhAG2 proteins, the glyphosate-induced transcriptional profiles, and the physiological biochemical responses in cotton and other crops. GhAG2 could also be used to improve salt stress tolerance through breeding and biotechnology in crops. Furthermore, these results could provide guidelines to develop a glyphosate-inducible system for controlled expression of targeted genes in plants.

Biocompatible phosphonic acid-functionalized silica nanoparticles for sensitive detection of hypoxanthine in real samples.

A novel hypoxanthine biosensor fabricated by immobilizing the xanthine oxidase (XOD) onto the phosphonic acid-functionalized silica (SiO2-P) film on the surface of glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was designed and constructed in this work. A biomimetic platform was designed with the phosphonic acid-functionalized silica nanoparticles (SiO2-P NPs) synthesized by the method of reverse microemulsion and electrostatic binding. In such a platform, XOD was selected as model protein to fabricate hypoxanthine biosensor based on SiO2-P NPs. The nanocomposite was characterized with transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Based on the advantageous functions of SiO2-P NPs, the entrapped XOD could preserve its bioactivity and exhibited an excellent electrochemical behavior with a formal potential of -0.37 V in phosphate buffer solution (PBS, pH=7). Response studies to hypoxanthine were carried out using current-time response curve. The biosensor exhibited a wide linear response ranging from 1.00×10(-6) to 2.61×10(-4) M. The detection limit of 2.33×10(-7) M at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3 was lower than that most reported previously. In addition, the electrode modified with XOD/(SiO2-P NPs) film also had a strong anti-interference ability in the presence of uric acid (UA) and ascorbic acid (AA). The assay results of hypoxanthine in fish samples were in a good agreement with the reference values.