Expressed sequence tags from a NaCl-treated Suaeda salsa cDNA library

Past efforts to improve plant tolerance to osmotic stress have had limited success owing to the genetic complexity of stress responses. The first step towards cataloging and categorizing genetically complex abotic stress resp onses is the rapid discovery of genes by the large-scale partial sequencing of randomly selected cDNA clones or expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Suaeda salsa, which can survive seawater-level salinity, is a favorite halophytic model for salt tolerant research. We constructed a NaCl-treated cDNA libra ry of Suaeda salsa and sequenced 1048 randomly selected clones, out of whic h 1016 clones produced readable sequences (773 showed homology to previousl y identified genes, 227 matched unknown protein coding regions, 16 anomalou s sequences or sequences of bacterial origin were excluded from further ana lysis). By sequence analysis we identified 492 unique clones: 315 showed ho mology to previously identified genes, 177 matched unknown protein coding r egions (101 of which have been found before in other organisms and 76 are c ompletely novel). All our EST data are available on the Internet. We believ e that our dbEST and the associated DNA materials will be a useful source t o scientists engaging in stress-tolerance study. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.