Comparative Genome Analysis of Salt-Tolerant Genes in Spartina Alterniflora.

Spartina alterniflora (smooth cordgrass) is a monocot salt marsh grass native to New Jersey, belonging to the grass family Poaceae.  Previous studies demonstrate that Spartina alterniflora flourishes in the Hackensack Meadowlands where the salinity of the river can be as high as 16 parts per thousand. Studying the salt tolerance at the molecular level will provide highly valuable data that is applicable to major crop species within the grass family.  A combination of bioinformatics tools and wet-lab techniques were employed to investigate several ESTs (EH277130, EH277751 and EH277268) of interest that are available in the GenBank sequence database.  Some of the bioinformatics methods used include BLAST, ClustalW and GCG-SeqWeb application.  A phylogenetic relationship of these salt-tolerant genes was established in Spartina alterniflora, 12 other grass species, and 2 mustard species.  The expression patterns of the target genes and derived proteins in response to salt stress were examined using RT-PCR and western blot. The information generated by this study may be used to identify QTL markers in order for breeding salt-tolerant cereal crops.