Abstract
Dof1 is a plant-specific transcription factor which had been showed to improve nitrogen assimilation in transgenic Arabidopsis. To investigate if the transcription factor is widely functions in all plants, the cDNA of adof1 from Arabidopsis was overexpressed in tobacco leaves under the control of tomato rbcS-3C promoter. The assay for pyruvate kinase (PK) and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) indicated the overexpression of adof1 led to a 1.5-5 fold increase in PK activity and 1.5-3.2 fold increase in PEPC activity, respectively, in transgenic tobacco. When grown under lower (1 mM) and moderate (5 mM) nitrogen conditions, the transgenic tobacco displayed better growth as compared with the control. The height of the transgenic lines was 1.3-1.7 fold of the control while their fresh weight was 1.1-1.3 fold of the control. No significant differences were observed in the growth of transgenic lines and the control when they were grown under higher nitrogen conditions.
