Isolation and Characterization of the Wheat cDNA Fragments Involved in Salt Stress

cDNA-AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) is used to isolate genes differentially expressed in salt-stressed and unstressed wheat lines RH8706-49 and H8706-34 derived from a single seed, representing a salt-stress resistant (SR) and salt-stress sensitive (SS) line, respectively. About 88.1% cDNA fragment are expressed in all the four samples, 11.9% are different between the samples. 68 cDNA fragments were cloned, of which 35 were subject to sequence analysis. Database searches indicate that 11 cDNA fragment show high homology to known genes, which mainly include proteins related to ion transport, signal transduction and oxidative stress. The remaining 24 cDNA show no detectable homology to known genes, suggesting that they probably represent novel genes.