Abstract
Salicornia europaea, a member of the family Chenopodiaceae, is a highly salt-tolerant halophyte, which is distributed in the salt marsh. To analyze the mechanisms of salt tolerance at cellular level, suspension-cultured cell was established. The suspension-cultured cell can grow in Murashige-Skoog medium containing 1x10 -7 M of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, and 1x10 -6 M of 6-benzylaminopurine. In addition, this suspension-cultured cell could grow in the presence of 600 mM NaCl. To find the key genes for the salt-tolerance, functional screening was performed using Escherichia coli as the host organism. A transformant expressing fasciclin-like arabinogalactan protein (FLA) homologue revealed to have enhanced salt tolerance. The role of FLA in the salt tolerance was investigated. This research was supported in part by Industrial Research Grant Program in '03 from NEDO.
