The introduction of stress up-regulated genes into heterologous plants is found to confer stability trait to plants in otherwise hostile environments. The soybean cold inducible factor-1 gene(SCOF-1) encoding a zinc finger transcription factor was introduced into Populus alba L.(white poplar) by co-culture with Agrobacterium tumefaciens GV3101 that carried the binary vector, pGA643/SCOF1. The putative P. alba transformed plants were selected on Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with 2.22μM 6-benzylaminopurine, 1.18mM carbenicillin, and 28.47μM hygromycin. The integration of SCOF-1 into the P. alba genome was also established by polymerase chain reaction(PCR), and the expression of the gene was confirmed by reverse transcription PCR. After exposure for 4h at 4℃ followed by 48h recovery at 27℃, the transgenic plants completely recovered to normal growth status. The chlorophyll content in transgenic plants was higher than that in wild type plants after chilling treatment. However, the moisture content and total phenolics was also not significantly different in transgenic and wild type plants after cold treatment.

• Yong-Duck Kim Corresponding author