Over-Expression of a NAD-Malic Enzyme Gene from Rice in <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i> Confers Tolerances to Several Abiotic Stresses

In order to investigate the role of a rice NAD-malic enzyme gene ( OsNAD-ME1 ) under different abiotic stresses, OsNAD-ME1 was constructed into plant expression vector and transformed into Agrobacterium for infecting Arabidopsis thaliana. There were higher transcriptional levels of Os NAD-ME1 in homozygous transgenic lines compared with WT plants as well as higher NAD-ME activity. WT and transgenic Arabidopsis were treated with NaCl, NaHCO 3 , mannitol and H 2 O 2 . And then their root lengths, crown widths and fresh weights were measured and compared. The results showed that over-expression of OsNAD-ME1 in transgenic Arabidopsis increased the resistance to abiotic stresses, which indicated that OsNAD-ME1 was related to stress tolerance.