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Copyright © 2003, The National Academy of Sciences Plant Biology Combinatorial modification of multiple lignin traits in trees through multigene cotransformation *School of Forestry and Wood Products, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI 49931; and ¶U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service and Department of Forestry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 †Present address: Forest Biotechnology Group, Department of Forestry, North Carolina State University, 2500 Partner II Building, Campus Box 7247, Raleigh, NC 27695. ‡Present address: Institute of Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. §Present address: Forage Biotechnology Group, The Noble Foundation, 2510 Samnoble Parkway, Ardmore, OK 73402. ‖To whom correspondence should be sent at the † address. E-mail: vincent_chiang/at/ncsu.edu. Communicated by Ronald R. Sederoff, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC Received August 28, 2002; Accepted February 26, 2003. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.Abstract Lignin quantity and reactivity [which is associated with its syringyl/guaiacyl (S/G) constituent ratio] are two major barriers to wood-pulp production. To verify our contention that these traits are regulated by distinct monolignol biosynthesis genes, encoding 4-coumarate–CoA ligase (4CL) and coniferaldehyde 5-hydroxylase (CAld5H), we used Agrobacterium to cotransfer antisense 4CL and sense CAld5H genes into aspen (Populus tremuloides). Trees expressing each one and both of the transgenes were produced with high efficiency. Lignin reduction by as much as 40% with 14% cellulose augmentation was achieved in antisense 4CL plants; S/G-ratio increases as much as 3-fold were observed without lignin quantity change in sense CAld5H plants. Consistent with our contention, these effects were independent but additive, with plants expressing both transgenes having up to 52% less lignin, a 64% higher S/G ratio, and 30% more cellulose. An S/G-ratio increase also accelerated cell maturation in stem secondary xylem, pointing to a role for syringyl lignin moieties in coordinating xylem secondary wall biosynthesis. The results suggest that this multigene cotransfer system should be broadly useful for plant genetic engineering and functional genomics. Tremendous efforts have been devoted to developing genetically engineered trees, with the emphasis on reducing lignin quantity, to improve wood-pulp production efficiency (1–5). However, lignin chemical reactivity also is a critical barrier to wood-pulp production, because lignin removal from wood is either initiated by chemical degradations or, in most cases, accomplished entirely through chemical reactions. Thus, the current tree biotechnology emphasis on low lignin quantity must be expanded to include greater lignin reactivity and, ultimately, a combination of low and reactive lignin traits. Lignin in angiosperm trees is polymerized from the guaiacyl and syringyl monolignols (Fig. (Fig.1)1
Considerable evidence is now available that shows that in angiosperm trees, the syringyl monolignol pathway (Fig. (Fig.1)1 Here we report the modification of multiple lignin traits in a tree species using an Agrobacterium-mediated cotransformation system. Two different genetic constructs harboring aspen xylem-specific promoter (Pt4CL1P)-driven aspen antisense Pt4CL (2, 21) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) sense LsCAld5H (13) genes were cotransferred into aspen, which led to the production of a variety of phenotypically normal transgenics expressing each one and both of the transgenes. The transgenics expressing a single transgene showed that antisense down-regulation of 4CL gene expression selectively mediated lignin reduction, whereas overexpression of the CAld5H gene specifically induced S/G-ratio augmentation. These independent effects became additive, with transgenic trees simultaneously expressing two transgenes exhibiting strong lignin reductions and drastic lignin S/G-ratio augmentations. Materials and Methods Transformation of Aspen with Multiple Genes. Aspen xylem-specific promoter (Pt4CL1P)-GUS binary plasmid DNA (22) was used as a module for preparing the genetic constructs. The GUS fragment was replaced with either an antisense Pt4CL1 or a sense LsCAld5H cDNA with respect to the Pt4CL1P promoter. Each construct was mobilized into disarmed Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 strain and used to coinoculate aspen leaf discs for the production of transgenic trees as described (2). Wild-type aspen plants derived from in vitro micropropagation were used as the control. PCR, Protein Blot, and Enzyme-Activity Analyses. PCR on aspen genomic DNA was used to verify transgene integration. Pt4CL1P promoter-specific sense primer (5′-CAGGAATGCTCTGCACTCTG-3′) coupled with Pt4CL1 5′-end sense primer (5′-ATGAATCCACAAGAATTCAT-3′) was used for amplifying the antisense Pt4CL1 transgene and with LsCAld5H 3′-end antisense primer (5′-ATAGAGAGGACAGAGAAGGCG-3′) for amplifying the LsCAld5H sense transgene. Crude protein was extracted from developing xylem of 10-month-old greenhouse-grown trees, used in protein gel-blot analysis probed with anti-4CL1 (21) or anti-CAld5H (13) antibodies, and used for assaying 4CL and CAld5H activities with caffeate and coniferaldehyde as substrates, respectively, as described (15). Lignin Histochemical Analysis and Protein Immunolocalization. Fresh hand-cut sections from stem internodes of transgenics used for the protein extraction described above were used for lignin histochemical localization by using the Cross–Bevan method as described (15). Thin sections (3 μm thick) from the same stem segments used for histochemical analysis were made for immunolocalizing 4CL and CAld5H proteins by using corresponding antibodies as we did before (15). Lignin Analysis. After stem developing xylem was collected for protein extraction, the woody tissue was ball-milled and used for lignin-content determination by using the Klason method (2) and for lignin S/G-ratio analysis by thioacidolysis (2). The rest of the ball-milled woody tissue was used to isolate lignin (23) for NMR analysis. The 1D 13C and 2D heteronuclear multiple-bond correlation (HMBC) NMR spectra were taken on a Bruker DRX-360 instrument fitted with a 5-mm 1H/broadband gradient probe with inverse geometry (proton coils closest to the sample). The conditions used for all samples were ≈100 mg of acetylated lignin in 0.4 ml of acetone-d6, with the central solvent peak as internal reference (δH 2.04, δC 29.80). Experiments used were standard Bruker implementations of gradient-selected versions of inverse (1H-detected) HMBC experiments (80-ms long-range coupling delay) as described (24). Carbohydrate Analysis. The stem woody tissue used for lignin analysis was used also for the determination of cellulose and hemicellulose contents as described (2). Results Establishment of Agrobacterium-Mediated Cotransformation System. To establish a multigene cotransformation system, four pBI101-based binary vectors, each containing a cauliflower mosaic virus 35S-driven monolignol pathway cDNA sequence, were mobilized individually into independent A. tumefaciens C58 strains for cotransforming tobacco. Forty-eight independent kanamycin-resistant transgenic plants were regenerated after cocultivating leaf tissues with a mixture of these four independent Agrobacterium strains. Of these transgenic plants, 35%, 27%, 19%, and 19% contained one, two, three, and four transgene constructs, respectively, based on PCR (data not shown), validating the multigene cotransformation system. We then applied this system to manipulate the lignin content and S/G ratio in aspen. Characterization of Transgenic Aspen. Heterologous LsCAld5H was used to avoid possible sequence homology-based gene silencing (25, 26). Forty phenotypically normal transgenic aspen lines were obtained, of which 37%, 40%, and 23% harbored antisense Pt4CL, sense LsCAld5H, and antisense Pt4CL + sense LsCAld5H gene constructs, respectively, as confirmed by genomic PCR. From each of these three transgenic groups grown in a greenhouse, several trees were selected randomly (Fig. (Fig.2)2
Immunochemical and Histochemical Characterization of Transgenic Aspen. We next examined the indigenous levels of stem 4CL and CAld5H proteins in control and transgenic plants. In control plants, 4CL protein signals were most conspicuous in the stem secondary developing xylem (Fig. (Fig.44
Structural Analysis of Lignin. Fig. Fig.55
To test whether up-regulating CAld5H may divert its reaction product 5-hydroxyconiferaldehdye into the lignin sink, we examined lignin HMBC spectra for the benzodioxan (4-O-β/5-O-α) units demonstrated to derive from 5-hydroxyconiferyl alcohol (32). However, such units in all four lignins (control, 23, 93, and 72) were barely detectable. 1D and 2D NMR also did not reveal any sinapaldehyde incorporation in these lignins. Thus, when CAld5H is up-regulated, the CAld5H/5-hydroxyconiferaldehyde O-methyltransferase/sinapyl alcohol dehydrogenase pathway (Fig. (Fig.1)1 Carbohydrate Analysis. Transgenic trees with reduced lignin exhibited an increase in cellulose content, and up to a remarkable 30% increase was observed in antisense-Pt4CL/sense-LsCAld5H transgenic line 141 due to a 52% lignin reduction (Table 1). Consistent with the observation reported by Hu et al. (2), the increased cellulose content together with reduced lignin quantity resulted in a cellulose/lignin ratio of 3 to 5 in the transgenic lines as opposed to 2.2 in the control (Table 1). The relative abundance of the major hemicellulose component xylan was essentially unaffected in all transgenic lines, confirming our previous results (2). Discussion We reported here an Agrobacterium system for transforming tobacco and aspen with multiple genes to develop transgenics that would incorporate various combinations of the transgenes. No significant differences were observed for either tobacco or aspen transgenics in the frequency of transgene incorporation; each transgene had an ≈50–60% chance of insertion. These results suggest that this system could be broadly useful for dissecting complex biosynthetic pathways and engineering polygenic agronomic traits in plants. Using this system we produced tree clones with diverse transgenic wood properties such as low lignin, a high S/G ratio, a high cellulose/lignin ratio, and various combinations of these traits. However, the growth enhancement noted in the previous transgenics having 4CL constitutively down-regulated was not found in this study. It is likely that the use of a xylem-specific promoter obviating the constitutive promoter-induced pleiotropic effects (2) might account for the normal phenotype of the transgenics reported in this study. The compensatory deposition of lignin and cellulose (Table 1) observed in this and previous (2) studies would then suggest intrinsic crosstalk between these two major cell-wall components and is consistent with the well known fact that trees naturally regulate the deposition of lignin and cellulose during wood formation (33–35). Thus, cellulose augmentation observed in transgenic trees could be a tree-specific adaptation to sustain mechanical strength in lignin-deficient xylem cells. The accelerated maturation (wall thickening and lignification; Fig. Fig.44 The S/G-ratio increase as well as lignin content-reduction efficiencies were well correlated with the activity levels of the enzymes involved and were independent of the numbers of the integrated transgenes (Fig. (Fig.33 In trees, down-regulation of 5-hydroxyconiferaldehyde O-methyltransferase has been shown to result in S/G-ratio reductions, with, however, concomitantly increased incorporation of coniferaldehyde and 5-hydroxyconiferyl alcohol derived directly from 5-hydroxyconiferaldehyde, producing cyclic benzodioxan 5-hydroxyguaiacyl moieties (32, 39). This suggests a certain metabolic flexibility during monolignol biosynthesis. Down-regulating cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase also induced a shunt of its substrate coniferaldehyde into lignin, diminishing the conversion of coniferaldehyde into both syringyl and guaiacyl monolignols to result in lignins with conserved S/G ratios (4, 40). Importantly, regulation in trees of these and CAld5H enzymes, which all are downstream of coniferaldehyde, has not resulted in lignin quantity change. Rather, it affects the overall lignin structure. Thus, these results would suggest a model that monolignol metabolic flexibility is operative downstream of coniferaldehyde, the major branch point in the monolignol biosynthetic pathway (Fig. (Fig.11 It is becoming increasingly evident that interactive functions (13–15) of pathway enzymes and the resulting “substrate-channeling” (41) operations may be critical in regulating metabolic flexibility for such a physiologically important process as monolignol biosynthesis. The multigene cotransformation approach described here represents a promising tool to allow the elucidation of these interactive enzyme functions in vivo to add mechanistic insights to the knowledge of lignin biosynthesis that cannot be acquired effectively by the traditional single-gene approach. Without an efficient multiple-gene manipulation technology, functional genomics and genome-wide expression profiling intended for developing economically important wood-quality traits in trees might still remain as distant reality. Acknowledgments We acknowledge Wen-Jing Hu and Cheng-Chung Tsao for cloning aspen 4CL and sweetgum CAld5H genes, respectively, and Fachuang Lu for confirming S/G ratios for selected transgenic trees using the derivatization followed by reductive cleavage method. This study was supported by U.S. Department of Energy Division of Energy Biosciences Grants DE-FG02-01ER15179 (to V.L.C.) and DE-AI02-00ER15067 (to J.R.) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (Agricultural Plant Biochemistry, National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program) Grant 2001-35318-11268 (to L.L.). Abbreviations References 1. Whetten R W, MacKay J J, Sederoff R R. Plant Mol Biol. 1998;49:585–609. 2. Hu W-J, Lung J, Harding S A, Popko J L, Ralph J, Stokke D D, Tsai C-J, Chiang V L. Nat Biotechnol. 1999;17:808–812. [PubMed] 3. Zhong R, Morrison W H, Himmelsbach D S, Poole F L, Ye Z H. Plant Physiol. 2000;124:563–577. [PubMed] 4. Pilate G, Guieny E, Holt K, Petit-Conil M, Lapierre C, Leple J-C, Pollet B, Mila I, Webster E A, Marstorp G G, et al. Nat Biotechnol. 2002;20:607–612. [PubMed] 5. Chiang V L. Nat Biotechnol. 2002;20:557–558. [PubMed] 6. Tower G H N, Gibbs R D. Nature. 1953;172:25–26. [PubMed] 7. Sarkanen K V. 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Nat Biotechnol. 2002 Jun; 20(6):557-8.
[Nat Biotechnol. 2002]Nature. 1953 Jul 4; 172(4366):25-6.
[Nature. 1953]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Plant Physiol. 2000 Oct; 124(2):563-78.
[Plant Physiol. 2000]Plant J. 2000 May; 22(3):223-34.
[Plant J. 2000]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Aug 3; 96(16):8955-60.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999]J Biol Chem. 2000 Mar 3; 275(9):6537-45.
[J Biol Chem. 2000]Plant Cell. 2001 Jul; 13(7):1567-86.
[Plant Cell. 2001]Plant Physiol. 2001 May; 126(1):145-55.
[Plant Physiol. 2001]Nat Biotechnol. 1998 Nov; 16(11):1060-4.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1998]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Apr 28; 95(9):5407-12.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Aug 3; 96(16):8955-60.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999]Plant Physiol. 2002 Feb; 128(2):428-38.
[Plant Physiol. 2002]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Apr 28; 95(9):5407-12.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Aug 3; 96(16):8955-60.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999]Plant Cell. 2001 Jul; 13(7):1567-86.
[Plant Cell. 2001]Plant Cell. 2001 Jul; 13(7):1567-86.
[Plant Cell. 2001]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Oct 26; 96(22):12328-32.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Plant Mol Biol. 1996 Aug; 31(5):957-73.
[Plant Mol Biol. 1996]Plant Physiol. 1998 May; 117(1):101-12.
[Plant Physiol. 1998]J Agric Food Chem. 2001 Jan; 49(1):86-91.
[J Agric Food Chem. 2001]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Nat Biotechnol. 1999 Aug; 17(8):808-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 1999]Plant Cell. 2001 Jul; 13(7):1567-86.
[Plant Cell. 2001]Plant Cell. 1997 Jul; 9(7):1031-41.
[Plant Cell. 1997]Plant Cell. 1997 Jul; 9(7):1211-23.
[Plant Cell. 1997]J Agric Food Chem. 2001 Jan; 49(1):86-91.
[J Agric Food Chem. 2001]Phytochemistry. 2001 Jul; 57(6):993-1003.
[Phytochemistry. 2001]Plant Cell. 2001 Jul; 13(7):1567-86.
[Plant Cell. 2001]J Agric Food Chem. 2001 Jan; 49(1):86-91.
[J Agric Food Chem. 2001]Phytochemistry. 2001 Jul; 57(6):993-1003.
[Phytochemistry. 2001]Nat Biotechnol. 2002 Jun; 20(6):607-12.
[Nat Biotechnol. 2002]Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Aug 3; 96(16):8955-60.
[Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999]Plant Cell. 2001 Jul; 13(7):1567-86.
[Plant Cell. 2001]Plant Cell. 1999 Aug; 11(8):1537-52.
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