Mechanism of Freezing Stress Tolerance Induction in Plants at the Cellular Level

It is well known that an application of low temperature for a certain period induces freezing tolerance in plants including Arabidopsis plant. Although many studies have been conducted to elucidate molecular mechanisms of the acquisition of freezing tolerance, it is still difficult in some cases to determine how Arabidopsis responds to these treatments at the cellular level. To study such responses, we initiated characterization of kinetics of cold acclimation process with Arabidopsis T87 suspension cultured cells. In this study, we describe the changes of freezing tolerance, sugar content and gene expression during cold acclimation. These results may provide new information about molecular mechanism of cold acclimation in plants at the cellular level