• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.123-127
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• 2004

In many organisms, trehalose has been Down as an energy source and a protectant against various environmental stresses such as desiccation, freezing, heat and osmotic pressure. Previously, we have isolated and characterized the genes encoding trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (ZrTPS1) and trehalose-6-phosphate phosphatase (ZrTPS2) from one of the most osmotolerant yeasts, Zygosaccharomyces rouxii. We have also generated transgenic plants by co-introduction of ZrTPS2 and ZrTPS2 into potato plant (ZrTPS2-2A-ZrTPS1 plant) in an attempt to metabolically engineer trehalose in the transgenic plant using the foot-and-mouth disease virus(FMDV) 2A system and to generate drought resistant crop plants. In this research, we assayed previously generated the ZrTPS2-2A-ZrTPS1 plant biofunctionally by drought treatment, and measured the amount of trehalose in the ZrTPS2-2A-ZrTPS1 transgenic plants. The ZrTPS2-2A-ZrTPS1 transgenic plant showed strong drought resistance in spite of little or no accumulation of transgenic in he transgenic plant compared with control plant.