Abstract
Thellungiella halophila is a model halophyte, which can grow in 500 mM NaCl medium. We have showen that a large number of known abiotic- and biotic-stress inducible genes were highly expressed in T.halophila even in the absence of stress. Furthermore, we performed metabolome analysis to show different metabolic profiles between Arabidopsis and T.halophila. During salinity stress, T.halophila was seen to accumulate large amounts of metabolites which are known for their osmoprotectant and antioxidant properties, but also many kinds of unknown metabolites comparied to Arabidopsis.
Since T.halophila was first discovered in China, another five ecotypes have been discovered globally. Interestingly, all ecotypes of T.halophila show marked salt tolerance. To identify important metabolites for salt tolerance and the difference in metabolites between Thellungiella and Arabidopsis, we carried out metabolome analysis using all ecotypes of Thellungiella and two ecotypes of Arabidopsis under normal or salinity stress conditions.
