Gene Expression Analysis of NHX to Salinity stress in Safflower (CarthamustinctoriusL.)

Safflower (Carthamustinctorius L.) belongs to the Asteraceae familyand its high resistance to environmental stresses, cased it can be used as a model plant for investigatingthe molecular basis of stress tolerance. There is a major mechanism in the plants to transfer cytosol Na+reducing its toxic effects. In this mechanism the excess of Na+ was pumped in the vacuoles or tissues with less sensitive. This displacement was carried by vacuole antiporter (NHX). In this study, the pattern of NHX expression was studied in safflower under salt stress by using semiquantitative RT-PCR. In this experiment,14-days-old plants of resistant variety of safflower, PBR-321, were subjected to NaCl treatment (with five concentrations of 5, 100, 150 and 200mM). Sampling of control and treated plants were performed at different time points (6, 12, 24 and 48 hours) after all four salt treatments. The results showed that expression rate of NHX geneincreased in all concentrations at different times than control plant. Maximum expression levels at different timeswere observed in 150mM of Sodium chloride. Totally, NHX antiporterhas important role in response to salt stress is safflower.