SALT AND FREEZING TOLERANCE DETERMINANTS OF PLANTS

¹ Center for Plant Environmental Stress Physiology, Purdue Univnersity, 625 Agriculture Mall Dr., West Lafayette, IN 47907-2010 USA

² Department of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, 303 Forbes Building, Tucson Arizona 85721 USA

³ Department of Microbiology, Oklahoma State University, 307 Life Sciences East, Stillwater, OK 74078 USA

⁴ Department of Biochemistry, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557 USA

⁵ University of Illinois, Department of Plant Biology, 1201 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL 61801

Plant abiotic stresses are major constraints to crop yield reducing production substantially below the genetic potential. A consortium of researchers have applied molecular genetics techniques to identify and functionally characterize determinants of stress tolerance, particularly those that are involved in salt and freezing adaptation. Gene expression profiling, and forward and reverse genetic approaches have identified numerous determinants that comprise the plant response to salt and freezing stresses. Analyses of the effects of altered expression of these determinants on stress tolerance implicate their roles in stress adaptation. Molecular genetic resources generated by this project (http://www.stress-genomics.org/) include EST databases, microarrays, T-DNA tagged Arabidopsis populations, and mutant lines exhibiting altered stress responses. A brief survey of genetic determinants that function to mediate stress tolerance will be discussed.