Abstract
The ionic transport systems have important roles on the ionic homeostasis in the cells under the salt stress. Sodium ions were removed from the cytoplasm by Na+/H+ antiporters localized on tonoplasts and plasma membranes. We hardly know about intracellular behavior of chloride ions, a counter ion for sodium ions, under the high salt condition.
We have been investigating about the two chloride channel genes in rice. We found three cDNA clones (AK066375, AK101523, and AK119459) for the novel rice chloride channel genes other than OsCLC-1 and OsCLC-2 in the database. They had 55.0% to 60.7 % identity of amino acid sequence with OsCLC-1. Although OsCLC-1 and OsCLC-2 were expressed in most tissues, two novel clones expressed in a specific organ. We found the expression level of novel CLC genes increased in the clc-1 mutant line, but not in the clc-2 mutant line.