Comparative study of morphological and physiological variations of transgenic and non-transgenic Paulownia tomentosa and hybrid Paulownia (9501) tree

Abstract

Paulownia is a fast-growing deciduous tree belonging to the family Paulowniaceae. It is cultivated for obtaining solid wood production in short time. The rapid progress of transgenic biotechnology has significantly enhanced development and production of different genetically modified plants including Paulownia. This study compared morphological and physiological variations of transgenic different Paulownia species (Paulownia tomentosa and Paulownia hybrid 9501) expressing two different thionin genes compared to non-transgenic lines. The morphological parameters were not affected by thionin gene transformation. Further, significant difference between the transgenic and non-transgenic lines of both Paulownia species was not observed. The estimated physiological parameters included chlorophyll content, total soluble sugars, total phenolic compounds, total flavonoids and total proteins. Some of these parameters showed significant difference between the transgenic and non-transgenic lines of the two different Paulownia species. Whereas the other parameters like phenolics and flavonoids did not show significant difference. ISSR molecular marker showed polymorphism percentage between the transgenic and non-transgenic Paulownia lines (i.e. 41.01% in P. tomentosa and 46.86% in P. hybrid 9501).