Cloning and Expression Analysis of a Stress-related Gene W1 in Wheat

A putative stress-induced gene,W1,was cloned from the cDNA library of drought-treated wheat seedlings by phage hybridization in situ.The full-length cDNA of W1 consists of 901bp and contains a 498bp open reading frame(ORF) encoding a 166 amino acid protein.Southern blot analysis indicated that W1 was a low-copy gene.RT-PCR analysis revealed that the expression of W1 was upregulated by drought and cold.Amino acid sequence analysis discovered that W1 had a conserved region of USP(pfam00582).Phylogenetic analysis showed that W1 was 83% identical to a rice stress-induced protein(NM_001061239).However,genes of the group involved in putative stress responses were not reported.W1 is the first isolated USP gene in wheat,which promote to clarify the stress-resistant mechanism and provide a candidate gene for improving wheat stress-tolerant cultivars.