Abstract
For plant salt tolerance, it is important to understand mechanisms for Na+ transport and restriction of Na+ uptake in plants under saline conditions. In the previous report, we have found that RCI2A has physiological roles in the salt tolerance via avoiding excess Na+ uptake. In this report, we have investigated whether the overexpression of RCI2A gene causes an enhanced salt-tolerant phenotype in Arabidopsis thaliana. As a result, high salinity treatment caused decreased accumulation of Na+ and ameliorated suppression of the shoot growth of transgenic plants than that of wild type. Under high salinity treatment, the damages, such as the decrease of chlorophyll content and increase of MDA content, were apparent in the wild-type shoots compared with transgenic plants. These data suggested that overexpression of RCI2A can alleviate salinity-induced growth suppression and photooxidative damages via reducing Na+ uptake into the shoots.
