Cloning and stress tolerance analysis of an LbGRP gene in <I>Limonium bicolor</I>

Glycine-rich RNA-binding proteins (GRP) are involved in post-transcriptional regulation, and play important roles in plant growth, development and stress response. In the present study, the full-length cDNA of a GRP gene (LbGRP, GenBank accession number: GQ398238) was cloned from a cDNA library of Limonium bicolor. To investigate the stress tolerance of LbGRP, the recombinant plasmid pYES2-LbGRP was constructed by inserting the LbGRP gene into the yeast expression vector pYES2. The recombinant plasmid pYES2-LbGRP was transformed into yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae INVSc1, and the INVSc1 strain transformed with empty pYES2 was used as the control. The recombinant yeast INVSc1 harboring LbGRP (pYES2-LbGRP) and the control INVSc1 harboring empty pYES2 were treated with NaCl, KCl, NaHCO3, Na2CO3, drought and frezzing, respectively, and their survial rates were compared under these stress conditions. The results showed that the survival rates of the recombinant yeast INVScl (pYES2-LbGRP) were higher than that of the control strain under these stress conditions, indicating that the LbGRP is tolerant to NaCl, KCl, NaHCO3, Na2CO3, drought and frezzing stresses. These results suggested that LbGRP plays a role in stress tolerance of L. bicolor.