Screening And Analysis Of The Genes Whose Expressions Are Up-regulated By Abiotic Stresses In Chloris Virgata

Salinization has become an important reason to restrict the development of the world's agricultural production. It is now becoming an important research subject to modify characteristics of saline-alkali soil, increase crop agricultural development. However, the improvement of soil need to spend a lot of financial and material resources, and it is slow and effective. It is fast and effective to study plant physiological ecology, and use molecular biology and genetic engineering in particular means of improving plant crops.Chloris virgata, (feather fingergrass), can survive in highly saline soils. Chloris Virgata seedlings were analyzed compared to rice plant (Oryza Sativa L. cv Nipponbare), which was classified as moderate salt tolerance among rice cultivars tested for their relative sensitivity to salt stress. We randomly selected 2,300 clones from a C. virgata cDNA library and examined their expressions under NaCl stress by dot blot analysis. About 60 EST clones were strongly expressed under NaCl stress. The ESTs were classified into eight groups: energy metabolism (21.7%), signal transduction (5.0%), oxidation adversity (13.3%), photosynthesis (10.0%) and growth development represented (5.5%), transcription factors (1.67%), enzymes (10.0%) and unknown genes (28.3%). Twenty-three of the genes were also induced by NaHCO₃, and 36 of the genes were also induced by abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. Ten genes were induced by all three treatments. These results will serve as a resource for understanding the molecular basis of salt tolerance in plants. Some up-regulated genes were selected for Northern blot including roots and leaves under different times. The result was the same with Dot blot. The Northern blot proved that some up-regulated genes expressed in roots, some in leaves, and others in both of them.