Abstract: Small heat shock proteins are main products of plants under heat shock stress and have close relationships to the thermotolerance of plant cells. It was showed that two small heat shock protein genes of Arabidopsis thaliana L., AtsHsp17.6-CⅠ and AtsHsp17.6-CⅡ also can be induced by other heavy metal ions, such as Ni⁺, Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺, Zn²⁺, Al³⁺, etc. Osmotic and oxidative stress can also induce their expression. Two kinds of constructions with the two genes under the control of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter, were induced into the genome of A.thaliana L. respectively. RT-PCR analysis indicated that the constitutive expression of the two genes in transgenic plants. It was showed that AtsHsp17.6-CⅡ gene was over-expressed in A.thaliana, the transgenic plants have acquired stress-tolerance to 6 μmol·L^-1 Cd²⁺ and 0.4% NaCl. Thus, they appear to play major role in maintaining cell function and survival during multiple stress or facilitating recovery from stress.

Key words: small heat shock proteins, abiotic stress, stress tolerance