The commercialization of transgenic glyphosate-tolerant PS-341 soybean in 1996 introduced a new pattern of use in which glyphosate can be applied to crops post-emergence to remove weeds without damage of crops. Since then, herbicide-tolerant crops have been quickly adopted by farmers. In 2012, herbicide tolerance, deployed in maize (Zea mays L.), Indian mustard (Brassica

juncea L.), Anemone vitifolia Buch.-Ham., soybean (Glycine max L.), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), and erba medica (Medicago sativa L.) occupied 59% of 170.3 million hectares of transgenic crops planted globally [3]. Two basic strategies have been successfully used in glyphosate-tolerant crop development: expression of an insensitive form of the target enzyme EPSPS, and detoxification of the Selleckchem HSP inhibitor glyphosate molecule. The first strategy has been used in most existing commercial glyphosate-tolerant crops. They were obtained by employing a mutated (TIPS) or a microbial (CP4) form of EPSPS that is not inhibited by glyphosate [4] and [5]. The theoretical disadvantage of this method is that glyphosate remains and accumulates in plant meristems, where it may hinder reproductive development

and lower crop yield [6]. The second approach avoids this limitation, because its functional mechanism is removal of herbicidal residue. N-acetylglyphosate is not herbicidal and does not inhibit EPSP synthase. Castle et al. [7] and [8] cloned glyphosate acetyltransferase (GLYAT) enzyme genes from Bacillus licheniformis. By Bay 11-7085 DNA shuffling, a Glyat gene was obtained that had catalytic efficiency appropriate for commercial levels of resistance to glyphosate in crops. The first trait, in which GLYAT is deployed in soybean and canola (Brassica campestris L.), is in advanced stages of development (Pioneer Hi-Bred Technical Update) [1]. In China, a key problem in herbicide-tolerance gene engineering is the

shortage of genes with higher glyphosate tolerance and independent intellectual property rights. Thus, it is of interest to seek new glyphosate-tolerance genes for developing glyphosate-tolerant crops that have high and stable heritability for glyphosate tolerance. Based on the biological diversity of microbial genetic resources in extremely polluted environments, a gat gene encoding N-acetyltransferase and a G2-aroA gene encoding EPSPS have been isolated by molecular biological methods [9] and [10]. G2-aroA showed enhanced glyphosate tolerance in transgenic crops [11]. In the present study, we simultaneously introduced the G2-aroA and gat genes into tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum L. Glyphosate tolerance analysis indicated that transgenic tobacco coexpressing G2-aroA and gat displayed higher tolerance to glyphosate than transgenic tobacco containing G2-aroA or gat alone.