Generation and preliminary metabolic profiling of transgenic rice plants accumulating putrescine

We introduced an antisense pea diamino oxidase cDNA under the control of the constitutive CaMV35S and the tissue-specific pea ENOD12 nodulin promoter in rice in order to develop genetic diversity with altered polyamine content (1). Regenerated plants were characterized molecularly and biochemically in terms of gene expression and end product accumulation. Transgenic rice plants that had an increase in putrescine levels between two and four-fold in leaf tissue, were selected for further analyses. In order to elucidate the biochemical function of polyamines in plant metabolism we used a GC/MS approach for metabolic profiling. This approach will help elucidate direct and also pleiotropic effect of expressed transgenes involved in complex metabolic pathways in plants.