Abstract

Solanum lycopersicum (tomato), which is one of the important agricultural products in the world and in also Turkey, is a valuable plant in food industry, with its high content of vitamins, minerals and flavonoids. Usable water resources are decreasing over time due to reasons such as unconscious water consumption, wrong agricultural treatments and uncontrolled use of chemicals (artificial fertilizers, herbicides/pesticides) in the world. The drought, which has recently emerged as one of the biggest problems in the world, poses a great threat to plants. Plants respond to such stresses in different ways. Together with these stress responses, they show maximum adaptability and resilience. After the stress factor is perceived by plants, many stress-specific signal transduction pathways and gene regulation are activated/inactivated. In the current study, it was aimed to investigate the mRNA level of SlAREB1 and SlAREB2 genes, which are thought to play a role in drought stress tolerance in tomato plants. Quantitative PCR was performed in the presence of two genes thought to be effective in drought tolerance and positive control in S. lycopersicum plant grown in media containing different PEG concentrations in in vitro. Thus, it has been confirmed that these genes expressed against drought stress are effective on tomato plants. This study will form the basis for future studies. It will be important in identifying other yet undiscovered genes that are effective in the metabolic pathways of drought stress. CT values obtained after β-actin normalization with 2-ΔΔCT method were proportioned to the control group and a graph was created. As a result of T-TEST with the results obtained, it was observed that there was a significant increase in 5% PEG and 10% PEG concentrations for the SlAREB1 gene compared to the control group. There was no significant increase or decrease in 2.5% and 20% PEG concentrations compared to the control group. For the SlAREB2 gene, there was a significant increase in 2.5% PEG, 5% PEG and 10% PEG concentrations compared to the control group. There was no significant increase or decrease in 20% PEG concentration.

Keywords:Abiotic stress; Polyethylene Glycol (PEG); AREB genes; Real-Time PCR