Abstract:
Salinity is considered a hindrance for growth and productivity of several economic crops worldwide. In this paper we investigate the effects of different concentrations of NaCl (0, 25, 50 and 100 mM) on growth and gene expression of two tomato cultivars differing in salt tolerance, a salt sensitive variety (GS12) and a salt tolerant cultivar (Adora). Salt stress caused GS12 plants to be affected negatively with significant decrease in all growth parameters; meanwhile Adora plants grew in a comparable pattern to control untreated plants. When differential display polymerase chain reaction was applied to test the difference in gene expression in both cultivars, GS12 plants showed down regulation of some genes while, Adora plants showed up regulation of other genes. We managed to identify a zinc finger protein gene and a nitrite reductase gene from Adora tomato plants which appeared to contribute to the ability of these plants to withstand salt stress and grow in a much similar manner like control untreated plants. These two genes could contribute in further studies of tolerance to other stresses when introduced to other crop plants or other tomato cultivars. |
