Overexpression of a NAC Transcription Factor Gene Increases Cold and Salinity Tolerance in .

NAC (no apical meristem (NAM), Arabidopsis thaliana transcription activation factor (ATAF1/2) and cup shaped cotyledon (CUC2)) transcription factors play crucial roles in plant development and stress responses. Nevertheless, to date, only a few reports regarding stress-related NAC genes are available in Borkh. In this study, the transcription factor in . was isolated as a member of the plant-specific NAC family that regulates stress responses. Expression of was induced by abiotic stresses such as drought, cold, high salinity and heat. The ORF of is 1122 bp, encodes 373 amino acids and subcellular localization showed that MbNAC25 protein was localized in the nucleus. In addition, was highly expressed in new leaves and stems using real-time PCR. To analyze the function of in plants, we generated transgenic plants that overexpressed Under low-temperature stress (4 °C) and high-salt stress (200 mM NaCl), plants overexpressing enhanced tolerance against cold and drought salinity conferring a higher survival rate than that of wild-type (WT). Correspondingly, the chlorophyll content, proline content, the activities of antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD) and catalase (CAT) were significantly increased, while malondialdehyde (MDA) content was lower. These results indicated that the overexpression of in plants improved the tolerance to cold and salinity stress via enhanced scavenging capability of reactive oxygen species (ROS).