Cold-induced mRNAs accumulate with different kinetics in barley coleoptiles

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Abstract
The effect of cold treatment on gene expression in two different barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) cultivars has been studied. Cold stress induced a set of new mRNAs as determined by in-vitro translation of coleoptile RNA obtained from control and stressed seedlings. These mRNAs accumulated with different kinetics, and the cold-induced proteins could be grouped into five categories. The first category (a) is represented by a single protein with Mr of 75 kDa that reaches its highest level of expression after 6 h at 5°C. This polypeptide readily accumulates in the plant tissues and it can be detected when proteins separated by two-dimensional electrophoresis are stained with silver nitrate. The other polypeptides appear later during the 1- to 4-d stress period (protein groups b and c), increase (group d), or decrease during the period of treatment (group e). Only minor differences between the two cultivars with different cold-resistance capacities were found when the in-vitro translation products were compared. The results obtained demonstrate that several mRNAs are specifically expressed as a response to cold treatment in barley coleoptiles.