Identification of the genes conferring heat tolerance to Arabidopsis plants via mini-scale FOX hunting of Thellungiella halophila full-length cDNA library

Abstract

Thellungiella halophila is a halophyte, and its genes have a high sequence identity (90-95% at the cDNA level) to genes of its close relative Arabidopsis thaliana. Thellungiella plants show not only the extreme salinity tolerance, but also freezing and oxidative stress tolerances. Moreover, we have revealed that Thellungiella also shows heat stress tolerance in comparison with Arabidopsis.
Recently, we generated a full-length enriched cDNA library of Thellungiella from various tissues and whole plants treated with salinity-, cold-, freezing-stresses and ABA. To identify the heat tolerant genes in Thellungiella, we are working on FOX hunting (Full-length over expressor gene hunting system) using the library. In this study, we screened heat tolerant transgenic lines from a mini-scale FOX lines of Arabidopsis. Which constitute of 120 genes encoding HSPs, HSFs and osmoprotectant synthesis enzymes.