Scientists Report Functional Characterization of a Soybean Galactinol Synthase Gene Under Stress Conditions

Galactinol synthase (GolS) has been known to play a key role in raffinose biosynthesis by catalyzing the formation of galactinol. The GolS gene family has been recently identified in various plant species. Among them, many individual GolS genes have been reported to function in plant stress tolerance.

The researchers reported the construction of transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing a soybean GolS gene, GolS2. There were no significant differences in the phenotypes of the transgenic and control plants during normal physiological conditions. The performance of the transgenic plants was evaluated under various stress conditions in relation to that of the control plants. The result showed that the overexpression of GmGolS2 gene in Arabidopsis improved the plant's tolerance to salt stress, but did not protect the plants against heavy metals and paraquat. The study suggested that soybean GolS genes could be a potential candidate for genetic engineering to improve abiotic stress tolerance of plants.

For more information, read the article in Vietnam Journal of Science, Technology, and Engineering.