Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of Cold and Freezing Stress Responsive Genes in Brassica

Cold and freezing stress is a major environmental constraint to the production of Brassica crops and enhancement of resistance exploiting cold and freezing stress resistance related genes offers the most efficient approaches to address this issue. Transcriptomics analyses of cold susceptible and tolerant plants in response to various cold and freezing stress conditions would be a promising approach to identify potential genes related to cold and freezing stress resistance. In this study, we selected 99 highly expressed genes from chilled stressed whole genome microarray data of Brassica rapa and highest similarity 99 cDNA sequences of Brassica oleracea with these 99 B. rapa genes were identified using Blast search of B. oleracea genomic DNA sequencing database. In the RT-PCR expression analysis, 43 genes of different family showed differential expression in cabbage plants after cold and freezing stress treatments. Among them 12 genes showed cold susceptible and tolerant variety specific expression. All these data revealed that these cold and freezing stress responsive genes might be useful resources in developing cold and freezing stress resistant Brassica crops.