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Biosynthesis of the starch is improved by the supplement of nickel (Ni2+) in duckweed (Landoltia punctata)

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Abstract

Duckweed is a kind of floating aquatic plant and increasing its starch production is favorable for bioenergy. In this study, we found that starch biosynthesis was greatly promoted by the supplement of nickel ion (Ni2+) through the comparison of other different ions. The starch content in duckweed was increased by nearly eightfold when duckweed was treated with 20 µM Ni2+. The analysis of paraffin sections visually found that starch granules were more complete and dark blue in Ni2+ treated duckweed than the control. Quantitative real-time PCR demonstrated that the expressions of starch synthesis-related enzymes were up-regulated in Ni2+ treated duckweed. Further analysis revealed that the accumulation of Ni2+ in duckweed effectively increased the activity of urease, which compensated for the deficiency of certain decrease in biomass and accelerated biosynthesis of the starch. Thus, our results represent another strategy to improve starch production of duckweed.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Yun Zhao who provided the duckweed (Landoltia punctata). This study was funded by NSFC31870240, 31671455 (Y.Y.) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019SCUD013).

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  1. Jin Shao and Zhibin Liu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University , Chengdu, 610064, China

    Yi Yang

  2. Key Laboratory of Bio-Resources and Eco-Environment of Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    Jin Shao, Zhibin Liu, Yongqiang Ding, Jianmei Wang, Xufeng Li & Yi Yang

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  1. Jin Shao
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Contributions

JS, ZBL and YQD designed and performed experiments. JMW, XFL and YY assisted with experiments. JS, ZBL and YY wrote the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yi Yang.

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Shao, J., Liu, Z., Ding, Y. et al. Biosynthesis of the starch is improved by the supplement of nickel (Ni2+) in duckweed (Landoltia punctata). J Plant Res 133, 587–596 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-020-01204-0

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