In plants, most Cys2/His2 zinc finger proteins with two zinc finger domains
(ZPT2) are involved in abiotic stress responses. A team from Jiangxi
Agricultural University in China, led by Dechun Liu, cloned and studied the
role of a ZPT2 gene family, PtrZPT2-1 from trifoliate orange (Poncirus
trifoliata), in abiotic stress response.

PtrZPT2-1 was revealed to be contained in the nucleus. PtrZPT2-1 expression
is strongly induced by cold, drought, salt and abiotic stresses.
Overexpression of PtrZPT2-1 increased the survival rates in the transgenic
tobacco after cold, drought or salt stress treatments. In addition,
expression levels of 15 abiotic stress-related genes were all significantly
increased in the transgenic tobacco overexpressing PtrZPT2-1 after the
abiotic stress treatments.

These results show that overexpression of PtrZPT2-1 in the transgenic
tobacco could be used to develop crops with improved cold, drought, and salt
resistance.

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