Study on the effect of drought stress and methanol spraying on dehydrine1 gene expression in Carthamus tinctorius

Drought is one of the most important environmental stresses for plants, which leads to a significant reduction in agricultural production. In drought stress conditions, plants exhibit a variety of responses at the physiology and sub-cellular levels such as increased expression of some genes like dehydrines. They are categorized in Group 2 proteins Late Embryogenesis Abundant proteins (LEA) that are synthesized and accumulated in different plant tissues not only in response to stress, but also as part of a pre-planned phenomenon during the final stages of development of the seed. Different types of Dehydrine proteins have been identified in Arabidopsis, clover and other plants. Due to the dry and semi-arid climate of Iran and the high economic importance of safflower, in this study, drought stress was applied to this plant with use of methanol spraying in a completely randomized design. The expression of dehydrine 1 in the seed formation stage using the RT-qPCR method was evaluated and the means were compared using SPSS ver. 18. The results showed that the highest level of drought stress (50%) associated with methanol spraying (30%), had significantly the highest level of dehydrine 1 gene expression whereas in other cases the interaction of methanol and drought stress did not have a statistically significant effect on dehydrine 1 expression. It is suggested that methanol spraying can be used as a suitable method for the plant to deal with the effects of stress in low rainfall environments.