Growth Response and Gene Expression Analysis of Chili Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) Plant Dehydrin Against Salt Stress and Drought In vitro

The need for plants resistant to abiotic stress now and in the future is predicted to be very high. It is related to extreme climate change and converting agricultural land into residential and industrial land. As Indonesia’s national strategic commodity, chili peppers require special attention when assembling chili peppers resistant to salinity and drought stress. New varieties of chili pepper plants resistant to saline and drought can be obtained through unconventional breeding (overexpression of the dehydrin gene). As a first step in assembling saline and drought-resistant chili plants, growth response and dehydrin gene expression tests were carried out from explants of chili pepper plants of the TM999 variety in vitro on salt and drought treatment media. This study aims to obtain information on the initial response to the growth and expression of the dehydrin gene from chili pepper plants of the TM999 variety before further research is carried out to increase the expression of the dehydrin gene through a molecular approach. The method used in this study is a complete randomized design with two treatments: Sodium chloride (NaCl) and polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000). The results obtained in this study showed that chili pepper varieties TM999 were more tolerant of drought stress than salinity based on several growth response data in both treatments. The analysis of dehydrin gene expression in both treatments showed that the gene expression was strongly influenced by the two strokes given. NaCl and PEG-6000 treatments increased the dehydrin gene expression of chili pepper plants grown in vitro. © Universiti Putra Malaysia Press.