Phosphate transporters play an important role in promoting the uptake and transport of phosphate in plants. In this study, the McPht gene from the Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, a mitochondrial phosphate transporter, was isolated and constructed onto a constitutive expression vector carrying 35S::GFP, and the recombinant constructs were transferred into Oryza sativa japonica L. cv. Kitaake to investigate the regulatory role of the McPht gene under phosphorus deficiency. The McPht gene encodes a

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... protein of 357 amino acids with 6 transmembrane domains and is located to the mitochondria, and the mRNA transcripts of the McPht gene are highly accumulated in the shoots of Mesembryanthemum crystallinum in response to phosphorus deficiency. However, more mRNA transcripts of the McPht gene were accumulated in the roots of the transgenic rice under phosphorus deficiency. Measurements showed that the transgenic rice demonstrated an enhanced promotion in the root development, the root activities, and phosphate uptake under phosphorus deficiency. Transcriptome sequencing showed that the transgenic rice exhibited total 198 of differentially expressed genes. Of these, total 154 of differentially expressed genes were up-regulated and total 44 genes were down-regulated comparing to the wild type in response to phosphorus deficiency. The selective 6 genes of the up-regulated differentially expressed genes showed an enhanced increase in mRNA transcripts in response to phosphorus deficiency, but the transgenic line and the wild type have no obvious differences in mRNA transcripts of the McPht gene's homologous gene, a mitochondrial carrier protein. Functional enrichment analyses revealed that the most of the up-regulated genes are involved in the cytoplasmic membrane-bounded vesicle, and the most of the down-regulated genes are involved in the mitochondrion and cytoplasmic membrane-bounded vesicle. The differentially expressed genes were highly enriched in plant secondary metabolisms