LEA2-2 from Caragana korshinskii confers salt and osmotic tolerance in Arabidopsis.

UNLABELLED: Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins are a group of proteins that are induced by various abiotic stresses and play critical roles in protecting plants from environmental damage. Here, a LEA_2 encoding gene (LEA2-2) isolated from Caragana korshinskii was proved to be induced by salt, drought, dehydration, high pH, cold, heat, and the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA). Moreover, overexpression of CkLEA2-2 in Escherichia coli improved tolerance to salt and osmotic stress. The CkLEA2-2 overexpression (OE) lines showed higher seed germination rates and longer primary roots than those of wild-type Arabidopsis plants under salt stress. Similarly, seed germination rates of OE lines were also higher than those of wild-type when subjected to osmotic stress. In addition, the OE lines showed reduced ABA sensitivity during seed germination and root growth compared with the wild-type. Several ABA- and stress-responsive marker genes were verified to be up-regulated in the OE lines too. Taken together, our results showed that CkLEA2-2 was a positive regulator involved in plant response to salt stress. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-026-01786-4.