Expression pattern analysis of transcription factors from Aeluropus littoralis in response to salt stress and recovery condition

Salinity is one of the most important abiotic stresses that decrease crop production. Halophyte plant can tolerate high sodium chloride (NaCl) concentration and transcription factors (TFs) are prominent regulators in plant response to stress. In this study, the expression pattern of four salt-induced genes encoding transcription factors in Aeluropus littoralis, namely, MYB, RF2, GTF, and ARID was studied. Plants were exposed to salt stress (600 mM) and recovery condition and samples were collected at three timepoints (6, 12 and 24 hours). The results of quantitative realtime PCR (qPCR) showed that the effect of NaCl was statistically significant on genes expression. The expression levelwas increased after 6 hours in all genes and after that, it drastically decreased with promoting of stress duration in both tissues. The highest expression was observed for MYB gene in root (68.44) that was higher than shoot (38.57) after 6 hours. At the recovery condition, the genes expression was gradually decreased in different tissues and finally got a stable value. The result showed that the studied TFs play an important role in tolerance of A. littoralis to salinity and could be used as an informative resource in the breeding programs. Also, the response of A. littoralis to salt stress depends on the tissue type and plant exposure duration