Abstract
Most terrestrial plants are weak in salt accumulated environment, for example, the growth of Arabidopsis thaliana is suppressed by 200mM NaCl. But seagrass Zostera marina grows in sea water, which contains about 500mM NaCl. So, we thought it has a strong salt tolerance system. We searched the genes for salt tolerance by the functional screening method using Escherichia coli. We screened E. coli containing Z. marina cDNAs using LB medium with 1M NaCl, and we isolated four clones. Their sequences have homology with a kelch repeat-containing F-box family protein, an ethylene response factor, a C domain of glutathione S-transferase and an unknown function protein. We made transgenic A. thaliana plants with overexpressing these genes, and exposed them with salt stress. We introduced these genes with an ADH promoter into a salt-sensitive yeast strain (Δena1) and evaluated their salt-toleranct ability.
