Regulates Cold Tolerance in .

Low temperature affects plant growth and crop productivity. The genes are a class of transcription factors that play important roles in cold response. Here we report that AtMYB14 participates in freezing tolerance in by affecting expression of genes. The gene was down-regulated by cold treatment. encodes a nuclear protein that functions as an R2R3-MYB transcription activator. Knock-down of by artificial microRNA increased the tolerance to freezing stress. Both the genes and the downstream genes were induced to a much higher level in knock-down plants than in wild type under cold treatment. Our results suggest that AtMYB14 plays an important role in the plant response to cold stress.