Identification of genes with altered expression levels in contrasting rice cultivars exposed to salt stress treatments

Soil salinization causes negative effects on plant productivity and poses an increasingly serious threat to the sustainability of agriculture. Improving salt and drought tolerance is one of the most diffi cult tasks for cereal breeders. A breeding program using somaclonal variation through biotechnological techniques has been used in rice to improve drought and salinity tolerance for increasing agricultural productivity in affected regions. The gene expression of the genes coding for cyclin-dependent kinase C, calcium-dependent protein kinase 7, protein phosphatase, the 7TM-Mlo protein, as well as the expressing sequence tags (EST) EX452034 and EX451286 was determined in rice salt-tolerant somaclone under salt stress conditions. These results show the role of those genes in the salt tolerance performance in rice.