LAUSR

Arabidopsisˈs HsfA1d was found to confer resistance to pea plant against heat stress by enhancing the activity of antioxidant enzymes and decreasing hydrogen per oxide compared to wild type plants. Pea is one of the important cool season food crops. Heat is the most critical abiotic stress that adversely affects pea growth and economic yield. Response to heat stress in plants is mostly regulated by heat shock factors (HSFs). The current study aimed at improving heat tolerance of pea plant by incorporating heat shock factor, HsfA1d, isolated from Arabidopsis thaliana. Gateway cloning strategy was used for cloning of HsfA1d in plant expression vector pGWB415. The target gene was introduced into pea plant using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation approach. Transformant pea plants revealed five fold increase in the expression of HsfA1d under heat stress (42 °C) compared to room temperature (25 °C). Transgenic and wild type plants exhibited significant difference in their H2O2 content, under thermal stress. Upon exposure to heat stress, wild type plants shown significant increase in their H2O2 content while no such elevation was found in transgenic plants. Similarly, significant difference in superoxide dismutase activities of transgenic and wild type plants was recorded, under thermal stress. Heat stress induced more pronounced increase in SOD activities of transgenic plants compared to wild type. Highly significant increase in proline content and ascorbate peroxidase activities of transgenic plants was observed upon exposure to thermal stress.