Analysis of abiotic tolerant ability of arabidopsis NUP 160-2 mutant

Abstract

In plants, variety of abiotic stresses such as drought and salinity stress are factors influencing plant growth, development and crop productivity. To study the functions of gene in responding to abiotic stresses, scientists have used mutant and overexpression plants as research models. Previously, it was reported that AtNUP160 gene has tolerance ability under cold stress through successfully testing of cold-response mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana. In this study, we examined the tolerant ability of atnup160-2 mutant under other abiotic stress such as salinity and drought in order to evaluate physiological characteristics of AtNUP160 gene under another abiotic stress in Arabidopsis thaliana plants. As the result, atnup160-2 mutant plants showed that they had better drought tolerance capacity compared with that of the wild-type plants while in salinity stress, it was no different phenotype between two genotypes in tolerance stress. However, root growth assay showed the result that WT and mutant plants had significant differences in root length. Together, our data indicates that AtNUP160 is involved in plant responses to both drought and salinity stresses. Keywords: Abiotic stress, Arabidopsis thaliana, drought tolerance, atnup160-2 mutant, root growth assay, salinity tolerance