Abstract
In terrestrial cyanobacteria, the cyanobacteria with very strong drought-tolerant ability exists. It is considered that there are three phases in the drought-tolerant mechanism, the drying phase, the desiccation phase, and the recovery phase.
In a recent study, comparison analysis of the gene expression of sigma factors in drying phase was carried out using a terrestrial cyanobacterium, Nostoc HK-01, a related species to an aquatic cyanobacterium Anabaena PCC 7120. It was found that gene expression of multiple sigma factors were induced by drought stress. In this report, we produced the cell lines of higher expression of sigma factors responsive to drought stress in Anabaena PCC 7120 cells. Among sigma factors responsive to drought stress, the cell line of higher expression of group-3 alternative sigma factor had drought-tolerant ability in comparison with control strain and we analyzed the gene expression of the cell line by DNA microarray.
