Improvement of drought and salt tolerance in Arabidopsis and Lotus corniculatus by overexpression of a novel DREB transcription factor from Populus euphratica.

A novel DREB (dehydration-responsive element binding) gene, designated PeDREB2a, was isolated from the desert-grown tree, Populus euphratica Oliv. PeDREB2a is classified into the A-5 group of DREB subfamily based on multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic characterization. Using semi-quantitative RT-PCR, we found that the PeDREB2a was greatly induced by drought, NaCl, low temperature, 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), 6-benzyl aminopurine (6-BA) and gibberellic acid (GA3) treatments in P.