Improved salt tolerance of jute plants expressing the katE gene from Escherichia coli

There is an urgent need for developing crops with greater tolerance to environmental stresses. This is even more important for fiber crops, which are being pushed to the marginal low-productive lands in order to make more room for food crops. Jute is the source of a highly versatile and environmentally friendly natural fiber, and is second only to cotton in terms of production and variety of uses. In this study, we used a tissue culture independent method for introducing a CMV 35S promoter driven katE gene from Escherichia coli K12 into a popular jute cultivar (Corchorus olitorius var O-72) in Bangladesh. Molecular analysis of the transgenic plants using PCR, reverse transcription PCR, and Southern blot confirmed the insertion of the katE gene into the jute genome and its successful expression. Salt stress regimens (150 mM NaCl) showed that transgenic plants were more tolerant as compared to wild plants.