Abstract
Thellungiella halophila is a halophyte closely related to Arabidopsis, and it shows not only extreme salt tolerance, but also freezing, heat, and oxidative stress tolerances. Thus its genes are good genetic resources to study plant abiotic stress-tolerant mechanisms. We have previously generated a full-length enriched cDNA library of Thellungiella from various tissues and from whole plants treated with salinity, chilling, freezing stress, or ABA. We determined the DNA sequences of 20,000 cDNAs at both the 5' - and 3' ends, and identified 9569 independent genes. Recently, a novel gain-of-function screening system, termed FOX hunting system (Full-length cDNA Over-eXpressing gene hunting system) was developed. In this study, we screened salt tolerance- and heat tolerance genes via FOX hunting using 9,569 independent genes as a whole. We carried out the first screening using 3,265 T2 lines, and identified several candidate genes conferring salt- or heat stress tolerances.
