Cloning and expression of multi-stress responsive gene (OsMsr8) in rice

Abiotic stresses constitute a serious threat to agricultural production, which often develops into major crop production –reducing factors around the world. Molecular biology technology has, however, emerged as a promising vehicle improving crop tolerance. Using GeneChip Rice Genome Array (Affymetrix) to analyze global genome expression profiling of parent super rice “Pei’ai 64S”, we identified a large number of stress responsive genes. OsMsr8, which responds to drought and cold stresses, is highly induced in rice panicle. Quantitative real-time PCR(qRT-PCR) data are well in sync with micro-array results. Bio-informatic methods were applied to analyze the gene sequence and its protein production, including ORF, homologous sequences, and physical and chemical properties. The results show the gene with a 834 bp open reading frame and encoding 277 amino acids. OsMsr8 gene lacks intron and typical conserved domains in its proteins. Also unknown homologous proteins exist in the different species. Analysis of putative promoter region identifies several regulatory elements related to stress response. OsMsr8 might therefore be much related to rice stress tolerance.