Gene expression profile of wheat seedling response to drought stress by cDNA-AFLP

Drought is one of the most adverse environmental factors affecting wheat yield and quality.Under drought stress,target genes in wheat could to be activated and expressed to produce drought-induced proteins,enabling plants to actively adapt to drought,and to maintain survival and yield formation.So,studying on drought-induced proteins and the related genes is essential for future genetic engineering and crop breeding of drought-resisting and water-saving.The objective of this research is to analyze the gene expression profile of wheat under drought stress,and to detect the fragments related to drought-resistant gene expression.Genes induced by drought stress in the seedling of Xinjiang spring wheat cultivar Xinchun 6 at 2-leaf stage were analyzed by cDNA-AFLP techniques.A total of 253 primer combinations were screened,about 3500 positive cDNA fragments were detected.Of these,748 upregulated differentially expressed transcript-derived fragments(TDFs) were identified,and 22 TDFs were sequenced and analyzed.BLASTx analysis and functional annotation revealed that 18 TDFs had homologous with genes of known function in GenBank database,and 4 TDFs were similar to some unknown function genes.The TDFs with known function protein homology conferred functions of stress response,development,signal transduction,disease resistance protein,transmembrane,and energy metabolism,etc.These results accumulated information for further elucidation of molecular mechanism of wheat cultivar Xinchun 6 to drought stress,and provide some candidate genes for crop genetic engineering of drought-resisting and water-saving.