Abstract:In the large-scale sequencing of the wheat full length cDNAs clones in our laboratory and functional analysis of transcriptional factors, a salt stress related gene was screened out and named TabHLH13. TabHLH13 is 1072 bp in full length with a 732 bp ORF, encoding a bHLH transcriptional factor with 240 amino acids. After comparing the genomic sequence with its cDNA sequence of TabHLH13, we found that it contains five exons and four introns. Homologous analysis found that TabHLH13 had a similarity with bHLH proteins from barley and Brachypodium as high as 96.2% and 90.5%, respectively. Using electronic mapping strategy, TabHLH13 was mapped onto wheat chromosome 7DL. The results of subcellular localization indicated that the TabHLH13 protein was a nuclear-localized protein. Tissue specific analysis indicated that TabHLH13 expressed in root, stem, leaf, pistil and anther. RT-PCR and qRT-PCR revealed that the expression of TabHLH13 was induced by salt stress.