Regulación post-transcripcional del desarrollo y la respuesta a estrés abiótico de Arabidopsis thaliana L. mediada por el complejo LSM1-7

Low temperature is an important determinant in the confi guration of natural plant communities and defi nes the range of distribution and growth of important crops. Some plants, including Arabidopsis , have evolved sophisticated adaptive mechanisms to tolerate low and freezing temperatures. Central to this adaptation is the process of cold acclimation. By means of this process, many plants from temperate regions are able to develop or increase their freezing tolerance in response to low, nonfreezing temperatures. The identifi cation and characterization of factors involved in freezing tolerance are crucial to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the cold acclimation response and have a potential interest to improve crop tolerance to freezing temperatures. Many genes implicated in cold acclimation have been identifi ed in numerous plant species by using molecular approaches followed by reverse genetic analysis. Remarkably, however, direct genetic analyses have not been conveniently exploited in their capacity for identifying genes with pivotal roles in that adaptive response. In this chapter, we describe a protocol for evaluating the freezing tolerance of both non-acclimated and cold-acclimated Arabidopsis plants. This protocol allows the accurate and simple screening of mutant collections for the identifi cation of novel factors involved in freezing tolerance and cold acclimation.