A DREB-like gene,designated as ThDREB2B (NCBI Accession No.EF653377) was isolated from Thellungiella halophila,a model plant for stress tolerance research.The result showed that:(1)The cDNA of ThDREB2B was 1 486 bp in full length,contained an open reading frame (ORF) of 954 bp that encoded 316 amino acid residues.The deduced protein was predicted to be 36.0 kD in molecular mass and pI 4.81.The region between residues 76 and 135 was a typical AP2/EREBP DNA-binding domain.(2)The phylogenetic analysis showed that ThDREB2B belonged to the A-2 group of DREB transcription factor subfamily.(3)The expression level of ThDREB2B was relative low in normal growth conditions,and was up-regulated under low temperature,salty,or drought stress.(4)The yeast one-hybrid analysis showed that ThDREB2B could bind to DRE element very specifically,but the transcriptional activate activity was very low.A post-translation modification might be necessary for ThDREB2B to activate the transcription of target genes.