Figure 2.

Dehydration and osmotic stress tolerance of various gene-silenced leaves and leaf disks. Three-week-old N. benthamiana plants were inoculated with TRV carrying inserts of a gene of interest and grown in the greenhouse along with TRV::GFP (vector control) and wild-type non-inoculated plants. A) Two fully expanded newly developed top leaves along with petiole were detached from these plants at 20 dpi and left on the bench. Fresh weight of these leaves was measured at the indicated time points. Decline in fresh weight was calculated and represented as percent water loss over their initial fresh weight. B) Leaf disks were collected from upper non-inoculated newly developed leaves from these plants at 20 dpi and incubated on CIM supplemented with 10% PEG for 20 days under the environmental conditions described in Figure 1. For non-stress, leaf disks were maintained on CIM without PEG. The effect of PEG-induced osmotic stress on callus growth was assessed by measuring callus dry weight at the end of the stress period. Each bar value represents mean ± sd (n = 12) of three independent experiments. ^{a, b, c, d, e, f} indicates that values are significantly different among time points within the plant type (ANOVA), and values significantly different from wild-type and vector control plants at that time point were indicated by ‘*’. Silenced plants which showed significant tolerance were indicated by ‘**’, and the rest were non-significant (Student’s t-test, P < 0.05).