Potato (Solanum tuberosum) is adrought- and frost-sensitive crop that is
incapable of adapting to cold temperatures. Commerson's wild potato (Solanum
commersonii) is a tuber-bearing wild potato species that exhibits greater
frost and drought resistance than the common potato. The CBF/DREB
transcription factors play important roles in response to a variety of
abiotic stresses including cold and drought stresses.

To explore different functions between potato CBF1 (StCBF1) and Commerson's
wild potato CBF1 (ScCBF1), Jian Li of Shandong Agricultural University
expressed these two genes in two separate Arabidopsis lines. All the
transgenic plants exhibited the dwarf phenotypes with delayed flowering and
thicker and additional rosette leaves. However, the ScCBF1 transgenic lines
showed significant tolerance to freezing and drought stress than the StCBF1
transgenic lines. The expression levels of several cold-responsive and
development-related genes, including genes that inhibited plant growth and
delayed flowering were also higher in all transgenic plants.

These results suggest that the two CBF1 genes play important roles in the
plant response to abiotic stress and in plant growth and development.
However, ScCBF1 plays a more pronounced function than StCBF1.



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