Cloning and expression analysis of Arabidopsis TRR14 gene under salt and drought stress

TRR14 is a novel protein important in trehalose (?-D-glucosyl-[1,1]-?-D-glucopyranoside) signaling in Arabidopsis. In this research, we provided evidences to demonstrate that TRR14 plays role in Arabidopsis responses to salt and drought stress. Transgenic Arabidopsis plants over-expressing TRR14 under the control of CaMV 35S promoter were generated. The transformed lines showed higher transcript levels of TRR14 than that of the Wild Type (WT) Arabidopsis plants. The RT-PCR results showed that TRR14 transcript level increased markedly by salt and drought stress both in WT and transformed lines. Further experiments indicated that the TRR14 transformed lines had unchanged seed germination, root length and chlorophyll content under stress conditions. In addition, the activity of oxidative enzymes like peroxidase and catalase were significantly induced in transformed lines under salt and drought treatments. Thus, the present data indicate that a novel protein, TRR14, is involved in plant salt and drought tolerance.