Low‑Affinity Cation Transporter 1 Improves Salt Stress Tolerance in Japonica Rice

Plants adapt to hostile environmental condition through specialized cellular processes which require coordinated regulation of multiple transport mechanisms. Low-affinity cation transporter (LCT) 1 is a membrane transporter gene exclusive only to members of the grass family, and the rice genome contained only one copy of the gene. Accumulating evidence highlighted the important role of this gene in the regulation of various cations transport into the plant cells including heavy metals. To further characterize the role of this membrane transporter in planta, we overexpressed the OsLCT1 in japonica rice using CaMV 35S and screened the transgenic plants for high salt toxicity at the seedling stage. A striking difference in the phenotype of OsLCT1-overexpression plants and the wild-type was observed at seven days after treatment, where transgenic plants exhibited moderate tolerance reaction to salinity stress. Our findings suggest that OsLCT1 gene can be useful to develop new resistant varieties against salinity stress.