Transformation of Balanites aegyptiaca into a Salt Tolerant Plant

Balanites aegyptiaca is a highly drought-tolerant but salt-sensitive tree and generally known as desert date. This tree is rich in oil contents and can be potentially used for biodiesel production¹. Moreover, numerous parts of this plant possess biological activities, including antibacterial, anti-cancer as well as antifungal activities which indicate existence of a variety of secondary metabolites^1,2.

As, this plant is a salt susceptible plant; therefore, due to this fact overall productivity of this tree gets affected. It is reported that salt stress affects 800 million hectares of agricultural land globally³. Moreover, salt stress at high levels of 24 dS m^-1 drastically affects the seedling growth⁴.

However, for the first time, Khamis et al.⁵ reported the transformation of this tree by employing 3 different Agrobacterium tumefaciens strains including EHA105, GV3101 and LBA4404 as well as pCAMBIA2301 plasmid containing the nptII marker and gus reporter genes. In this experiment, strain GV3101 exhibited the maximum transformation effectiveness. Moreover, this protocol transferred the ERD10 gene present in B. aegyptiaca, ultimately producing a salt tolerant transformed plant.

Therefore, a new study was designed to investigate the effect of the genotypic variation in B. aegyptiaca plants by employing Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain GV3101 containing the pBinAR vector harboring ERD10 (Early Responsive to Dehydration 10) and nptII genes, to develop a salt-tolerant plants⁶.

The outcomes of this study emphasized the effect of the genotypic variation of the tested plant on the efficiency of the genetic transformation process. Though, detailed research is needed to investigate the expression of the transformed genes as well as the capability of the transformed plant to survive under different salinity levels.

Conclusively, this experiment can assist the production of salt-tolerant plants which can be grown in arid and semi-arid lands. Moreover, it may also enable the biotechnological industries to produce biodiesel in order to meet with the ever growing demand of fuel.

REFERENCES

1. Chapagain, B.P., Y. Yehoshua and Z. Wiesman, 2009. Desert date (Balanites aegyptiaca) as an arid lands sustainable bioresource for biodiesel. Bioresour. Technol., 100: 1221-1226.
2. Mohamed, A.M., W. Wolf and W.E.L. Spie·, 2002. Physical, morphological and chemical characteristics, oil recovery and fatty acid composition of Balanites aegyptiaca Del. Kernels. Plant Foods Hum. Nutr., 57: 179-189.
3. Peleg, Z., M.P. Apse and E. Blumwald, 2011. Engineering salinity and water-stress tolerance in crop plants: Getting closer to the field. Adv. Bot. Res., 57: 405-443.
4. Radwan, U.A., I. Springuel, P.K. Biswas and G. Huluka, 2000. The effect of salinity on water use efficiency of Balanites aegyptiaca (L.). Del. Egypt. J. Biol., 2: 1-7.
5. Khamis, G., T. Winkelmann, F. Schaarschmidt and J. Papenbrock, 2016. Establishment of an in vitro propagation and transformation system of Balanites aegyptiaca. Plant Cell Tissue Organ Cult., 125: 457-470.
6. Alaraidh, I.A., 2018. Genotypic variation affects the efficiency of the genetic transformation process in Balanites aegyptiaca. Int. J. Bot., 14: 30-35.