Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Globally, wheat is the major source of staple food, protein, and basic calories for most of the human population. Strategies must be adopted for sustainable wheat crop production to fill the ever-increasing food demand. Salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses involved in plant growth retardation and grain yield reduction. In plants, calcineurin-B-like proteins form a complicated network with the target kinase CBL-interacting protein kinases (CIPKs) in response to intracellular calcium signaling as a consequence of abiotic stresses. The <jats:italic>AtCIPK16</jats:italic> gene has been identified in <jats:italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</jats:italic> and found to be significantly upregulated under salinity stress. In this study, the <jats:italic>AtCIPK16</jats:italic> gene was cloned in two different plant expression vectors, i.e., <jats:italic>pTOOL37</jats:italic> having a <jats:italic>UBI1</jats:italic> promoter and <jats:italic>pMDC32</jats:italic> having a <jats:italic>2XCaMV35S</jats:italic> constitutive promoter transformed through the <jats:italic>Agrobacterium</jats:italic>-mediated transformation protocol, in the local wheat cultivar <jats:italic>Faisalabad-2008</jats:italic>. Based on their ability to tolerate different levels of salt stress (0, 50, 100, and 200 mM), the transgenic wheat lines <jats:italic>OE1</jats:italic>, <jats:italic>OE2</jats:italic>, and <jats:italic>OE3</jats:italic> expressing <jats:italic>AtCIPK16</jats:italic> under the <jats:italic>UBI1</jats:italic> promoter and <jats:italic>OE5</jats:italic>, <jats:italic>OE6</jats:italic>, and <jats:italic>OE7</jats:italic> expressing the same gene under the <jats:italic>2XCaMV35S</jats:italic> promoter performed better at 100 mM of salinity stress as compared with the wild type. The <jats:italic>AtCIPK16</jats:italic> overexpressing transgenic wheat lines were further investigated for their K<jats:sup>+</jats:sup> retention ability in root tissues by utilizing the microelectrode ion flux estimation technique. It has been demonstrated that after 10 min of 100 mM NaCl application, more K<jats:sup>+</jats:sup> ions were retained in the <jats:italic>AtCIPK16</jats:italic> overexpressing transgenic wheat lines than in the wild type. Moreover, it could be concluded that <jats:italic>AtCIPK16</jats:italic> functions as a positive elicitor in sequestering Na<jats:sup>+</jats:sup> ions into the cell vacuole and retaining more cellular K<jats:sup>+</jats:sup> under salt stress to maintain ionic homeostasis.</jats:p>