Barley Dhn13 encodes a KS-type dehydrin with constitutive and stress responsive expression

Dehydrins (DHNs) compose a family of intrinsically unstructured proteins that have high water solubility and accumulate during late seed development, low temperature or water deficit conditions, and are thought to play a protective role in freezing and drought tolerance in plants. Twelve Dhn genes were previously described in the barley genome. Here, we report an additional member of this multigene family, Dhn13. The Dhn13 gene is located in chromosome 4 near marker MWG634 and encodes a 107-amino acid KS-type DHN. Semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR data indicated that Dhn13 is constitutively expressed in seedling tissues and embryos of developing seeds. Microarray data were consistent with these results and showed a considerable increase of Dhn13 transcripts when plants were subjected to chilling and freezing temperatures. The highest transcript levels where observed in anthers. The presence of ABRE, MYC, DRE, and POLLEN1LELAT52 regulatory elements in the putative Dhn13 promoter region is in agreement with expression data.