Fig. 8

Expression analysis of senescence marker genes in WT and transgenic plants. NtCP1 cysteine protease, SAG12 cysteine protease, Ntdin a tobacco senescence-associated gene, CHL chlorophyllase, GDH glutamate dehydrogenase, Nia nitrate reductase, GS2 chloroplastic glutamine synthetase, RBCS2B RuBisCO small subunit, CAB chlorophyll a/b binding protein. 18S RNA (GenBank Accession Number: AJ236016) was used as housekeeping gene. The gene names and primers used for qRT-PCR analysis are shown in Additional file 6. The standard error of the mean of three biological replicates (nested within three technical replicates) is represented by the error bars in qRT-PCR analysis