Fig. 7

Silencing of the GhGLN1.1a gene by VIGS and plant growth and analyses of nitrogen use efficiency in cotton plants. A The phenotype of the control and gene-silenced plants. The gene-silenced plants have albino phenotypes. “CLCrV-CAL1”, chlorophyll-deficient plants; “WT”, the wild-type plants; “CLCrV:00”, the plants carrying the CLCrV empty vector; “CLCrV: GhGLN1.1a”, the GhGLN1.1a-silenced plants. B Relative expression level. C Plant dry weight. D Plant fresh weight. E Glutamine synthetase (GLN) activity. F N content of the leaves. G Accumulation of N in the leaves. H N use efficiency (NUE). VIGS, virus-induced gene sequency. Error bars show the standard deviations of the three replicate trials (*/**/*** denote significant differences between the empty vector and GhGLN1.1a-silenced plants, where * indicates p < 0.05, ** indicates p < 0.01 and *** suggests p < 0.001)